THE WORD OF GOD AS OUR GARDEN OF EDEN

SUNDAY, SIXTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

Jer 17:5-8; Ps 1:1-4,6; 1 Cor 15:12,16-20; Lk 6:17,20-26

Our Faith Makes us God’s dwelling Place

Throughout last week, the Church led us through the creation stories and the fall of man in the book of Genesis. From the stories, the sacred authors enlightened our minds on the cause of man’s woes and God’s loving plan for his salvation. The manifold woes we experience in our present mortal life are due to our inadvertence or lack of attention to the word of God, which is our origin and eternal light. Our first parents brought these woes on themselves and subsequently on their progenies by their disobedience to the word of God. We perpetuate these conditions of curse on ourselves and our children by continuing on the same path of disobedience to the word of God. The Church by guiding us through the creation stories intended that we understand the word of God as our origin. If the word of God brought us into existence, only the word of God can sustain and bring us to the desired end of our creation. So, the Church guides us through the readings of this week to understand how God achieves his purpose of our creation through his word. The prophet Jeremiah restates for us the source of the woes we suffer. “A curse on the man who puts his trust in man, who relies on things of flesh, whose heart turns from the Lord. He is like dry scrub in the wastelands: if good comes, he has no eyes for it, he settles in the parched places of the wilderness, a salt land, uninhabited.” These describe Adam and Eve’s fate after they disobeyed God’s will.

The Garden of Eden, where the two were placed and tended, was cultivated and tended by God’s word and presence. The Garden and everything in it were a nursery of God’s design and plan for man’s wellbeing. God lived and walked with them there. Everything there worked together to lead man to God, who is our everlasting end. We can say that the Garden was a physical manifestation of God’s fatherly care and loving providence for the good of man. From this understanding, the disobedience of our first parents put them out of the Garden and not God as such; the sentence and enforcement were just the implementation of the result of their choice. If the Garden and every good and lovely thing in it were a physical manifestation of God’s word, it follows that the word of God is the real Garden of Eden for us. The word of God is our real blessing, as Jeremiah testifies. “A blessing on the man who puts his trust in the Lord, with the Lord for his hope. He is like a tree by the waterside that thrusts its roots to the stream: when the heat comes it feels no alarm, its foliage stays green; it has no worries in a year of drought, and never ceases to bear fruit.” Therefore, we must not be fixated on the external manifestations, which the Garden of Eden was an example, but rather fix our gaze on the word of God as the source of our lives and goodness.

Subsequently, the Psalmist bid us delight in the word of God and ponder it day and night. The practice of this counsel is equivalent to eating the good and life-giving fruits of the trees in the Garden of Eden. We follow the scriptures to affirm this occupation and preoccupation as the best for any mortal man. Eve failed to do this, she was rather found in the company of the scorner, the devil himself, which was her downfall and the cause of man’s woes. The meditation and contemplation of the word of God have been made easier by the Incarnation of the Eternal Word. By remembering his humanity, the will and love of God the Father fill our whole consciousness, and by believing in his resurrection, his divinity is made present to us. For by sharing in our human nature, he participated in our curse and destroyed it, because his absence was the essence of our curse or death. What shows that he destroyed our curse is his resurrection. Saint Paul makes this point as follows. “If Christ raised from the dead is what has been preached, how can some of you be saying that there is no resurrection of the dead? For if the dead are not raised, Christ has not been raised, and if Christ has not been raised, you are still in your sins.” So, the presence of the Holy Spirit in us demonstrates the resurrection and divinity of Jesus Christ.

The recognition of the great and divine bounty that God lavished on us through his word makes us extremely humbled. Since the word of God is the source of the Garden of Eden, our faith in the word of God creates the Garden of Eden within us, irrespective of our external environment or manifestations. If our faith in the word of God is steady and unshaken, then the external manifestations are the fruits of the different species of trees in the Garden; they are all good for consumption. Our Lord taught this truth when he fixed his eyes on the crowd of people around him in the gospel. “How happy are you who are poor: yours is the kingdom of God. Happy you who are hungry now: you shall be satisfied. Happy you who weep now: you shall laugh. Happy are you when people hate you, drive you out, abuse you, denounce your name as criminal, on account of the Son of Man.” In other words, if the fruit you are eating now comes from your preoccupation with the Word of God, you need not worry; you should rather rejoice. “Rejoice when that day comes and dance for joy, for then your reward will be great in heaven. This was the way their ancestors treated the prophets.” For us who believe in Jesus Christ, the Eternal Word, we continue to be in the Garden of Eden, through faith; in our exile, the physical manifestation of the good things of the Garden is not according to the senses. Faith makes the unseen realities present within us on our journey to the heavenly Jerusalem.

Let us pray: O God, who teach us that you abide in hearts that are just and true, grant that we may be so fashioned by your grace as to become a dwelling pleasing to you. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.