Yesterday, the liturgy began its foray into the book of Genesis, the first book of the Torah, the first five books (which were traditionally thought to have been written by Moses) of the Hebrew bible, the Tanakh, which we Christians usually call the Old Testament. We began at the very beginning of Genesis with the first of the two creation accounts that begin Genesis. I’m sure some of us are unaware that there are two very distinct and entirely different creation accounts in Genesis. The first, the so-called Priestly account that has God creating the universe in six days and resting on the seventh (the sabbath), and the second, known as the Yahwistic account, better known as the story of Adam and Eve. These two stories were obviously from very separate traditions and were somehow brought together in Genesis when it was written in the 6th century B.C. or thereabouts.
Probably the most striking difference between these two stories is how the female sex is depicted. In the Yahwist account, Eve, the first woman, is decidedly seen as something, if not exactly less than Adam, the first human, then at the very least she is derived from and thus somehow subordinate (although essential- “It is not good that the man should be alone”) to him. That was certainly the ancient Jewish understanding which has always exhibited a very patriarchal bent. We see that tradition very much reflected in Paul’s epistle to the Ephesians in verses 5:22-24 (many scholars today question the Pauline authorship of Ephesians, by the way).
However, in the Priestly account we read today, the sixth day of creation, it states (in the single verse 1:27) that, “God created human beings in God’s image; in the divine image God created them; male and female God created them.” That is strikingly different than the account of Adam and Eve. Here, there is no first male and then, from him, female. From the very beginning we were created together as male and female. There is no implied subordination here, but rather equality. Of course, there are a great many other ideas about gender that can arise from this one verse, but that equality of the sexes is the most obvious. It has great implications for all of us today.
Of course, the primary truth from Genesis’ creation accounts is that God is creator of all that is or can be (including gender! God created male and female, God is not male or female). And the second truth (also from 1:27) is that we as human beings were created in God’s image (it is also somewhat remarkable that the Priestly account has humans created last, after everything else, which agrees with all theories of evolution which say we were indeed pretty much the last of all!). To be created in God’s image means for me that we were given true autonomy, that we alone of creation are fully aware of ourselves as a free, highly intelligent “self” (the ultimate meaning of that word is by no means at all clear) who is able to freely decide and choose. In other words, that human beings are fully real, in every sense of that word, with a true freedom of will and not just a puppet or some figment, as it were, of God’s “imagination.”
That freedom is a great gift but also an awesome responsibility. For we can say yes to God’s love in total freedom, but we can also say no with that same freedom, and God will not force God’s love on the person who says no. So our “no” can stop God’s grace from fully working in us. We are often unaware that we are actually saying no. But God always continues to offer that total love for us as an invitation, never a demand. “Come and see,” Jesus said. We need to always pray that we will become aware and answer God’s loving and gentle invitation with that full “yes” we are capable of giving which is actually all we need to do, for God will do all the rest after that.