style, God, and grace

A little more on Adam and Eve.  I saved my favorite part (about clothes, duh) for a separate post.

So they eat from the Tree of Knowledge and "realize" that they should feel shame about who they were created to be, even though they were pronounced Good.  

They sewed fig leaves together as makeshift clothes for themselves.  When they heard the sound of God strolling in the garden in the evening breeze, the Man and his Wife hid in the trees of the garden, hid from God. 

 God called to the Man: “Where are you?” 

 He said, “I heard you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked. And I hid.”
  

God said, “Who told you you were naked?

 That "Who told you you were naked?" line gets me every time.  I hear it said with such compassion.  Chicken, who told you you had anything to be ashamed of?  Oh, baby, who told you you're not Good? 

But God understands that despite our Goodness, we have trouble confronting the reality of our not-Godness.  And so, though God did not see us as needing to cover up ourselves, since God loves us even though we are not God, God met us where we were.

 God made leather clothing for Adam and his wife and dressed them.

Just before their expulsion from Eden -- not a punishment but as the inevitable consequence of this new knowledge -- God makes for them more durable clothing than the clothing they made for themselves.  God meets us where we are.  That's grace.

Ron always says, God doesn't have to bless a situation to be in it.  God didn't have to believe them that they needed clothing to provide for them.  God doesn't have to bless violence to be present with those experiencing it.  God doesn't have to bless male supremacy in order to work with people of all genders, wherever we are in our understandings of the Goodness present in all of us -- transgendered, cisgendered, gender non-conforming, etc.

God's not waiting for us to be perfect before God will be with us.  God has always known that we are not God and that we are Good.

That's a relief.