KNOWING EVERYTHING
Genesis 2:4b-9,15-17; 3:1-7,21-22a

A sermon given by the Rev. Richard H. Taylor
May 23, 2004 / Seventh Sunday of Easter

“You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it, you shall die.”

Whatever does that mean? “Tree of the knowledge of good and evil?”

And there is a complication. Translators disagree as to what the Hebrew means that is translated “the knowledge of good and evil.” One choice is that it means the expression of moral choice. The English seems to imply that. But what the Hebrew actually might mean is “’knowledge from A to Z’ – that is, of everything.” 1 When I read those words from the exegete my mind began to wander, and I've literally spent hours thinking about this ever since.

Insert this idea into the text:

God says if you pursue knowing everything you will die. The serpent/snake says you will be like God. When you do pursue knowing everything, you end up aware of nakedness, shame, and vulnerability. But then God, when sending Adam and Eve east of Eden, admits that when you do pursue wanting to know everything you are like God.

Well, what do you think? Would you like to know everything? Is that the basic temptation that snarls up human life? Our endless inquisitiveness? Would you like to know everything? I guess I am guilty. My mind has dozens of questions I’d like answered: is their life on other planets? What is heaven like? Can we cure cancer? I could gouge myself on the meat of this fruit. Questions, questions, questions. And I think a lot of us had this same desire when we were three years old: why mommy? Why daddy?

Do you want to know everything?

But the question takes a more somber tone when it gets closer to home. Do I want to know on what day I will die? Do I want to know if my father cheated on my mother? Do I want to know if some of my “so called” friends really don’t like me? Do I want to know everything, or would I prefer to live in innocent bliss?

What would you like to know about the other people in this room? Would you like to know which ones have slept around and been disloyal to their spouses? Would you like to know which ones have alcohol and drug problems? Would you like to know which people here are emotionally sick, whose brains are confused? What would you really like to know about these others?

And what would you like them to know about you? What if you were completely transparent, and the people who were looking at you could see everything, know everything, perceive everything?

There is a part of me which could engage in a certain kind of voyeuristic one-ups-man-ship. But there is another part of me that would rather wear blinders and just not know. I can understand why one of Jonathan Edwards favorite Bible texts was Proverbs 12:23. “One who is clever conceals knowledge, but the mind of the fool broadcasts folly.” In the King James, “a prudent man concealeth knowledge.” Even if we can be a little like God, we might not want to tell everything to everyone. Perhaps that is what God is up to. Perhaps God follows Proverbs’ all so human reasonable advice: don’t tell everybody everything you know. Is that why God fenced in the tree?

But Proverbs is a book written from the top of the Empire. King Solomon does not tell the peasants how to get power, or where he places his wealth, or who are his fifth-column spies out on the city streets. Power conceals from weakness. Powerful politicians conceal their under the table bribes. Police who gained their high rank by cheating conceal their arrogance. The rich seldom tell the poor how to get their money. Oppressive husbands in repressive regimes do not tell wives how to get a divorce.

So concealment is not the answer.

Paul offers a more gentle instruction, “speak the truth in love.”(Ephesians 4:15) There are some people who have only one standard for what they say “is it the truth?” There are other well intentioned souls that will tell a falsehood to comfort you. But Paul’s double qualifier holds back a lot of quick damaging language: “speak the truth in love.” How can what you know be revealed in a kind and gentle way?

But do you want to know everything?

If we push the Genesis story, it tells us we are already on this kick like it or not. Humanity has already eaten. We are already consumed by this insatiable desire to know everything. We can’t lay it aside. And in this desire to know everything we are like God. God also likes to know.

But we are not about to take God’s place. “Certainly a creature whose first act upon acquiring new ‘knowledge’ is to cover himself up poses no threat to the Creator.”2 We are like God in desiring knowledge. But unlike God we die. “You shall surely die.” And our death is more than literal, more than corporeal. Our death is metaphorical. We know we are naked. We know we are consumed. We know we are sinners.

Perhaps what the story says is that we know that we are. We come into existence. From creation Adam and Eve could look at each other, but only after taking from the tree did they realize they were being looked at. Others are looking at us. We exist. Others can see what we do. Others can see our failings, our inadequacy, our death. We are aware.

And we have already done that which makes us aware, we can’t change it. We are on a train which everyday helps us to know more and more of everything.

But let me push this just one bit farther.

The most popular Bible reading for couples getting married is First Corinthians thirteen. It is called the great “love chapter.” “Though I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but have not love, I am a clanging gong or a sounding cymbal.” People love it. They particularly like the first two paragraphs and the last sentence of the chapter. But in between those two parts are a few sentence’s of Paul’s that many people leave out. They don’t understand that part, and they don’t understand what it has to do with love. So they leave it out.

In that in between passage it says, “For we know in part, and we prophecy in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end… For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know in part; then I will know fully even as I have been fully known.”

This is sort of Paul’s view of heaven. In heaven we will see everything. In heaven we will know everything. But also in heaven we will be fully seen and we will be fully known. If this were heaven you would know everything there is to know about everyone else in this room. If this were heaven everyone here would see every part of you, would know everything there is to be known about you. That may not seem like heaven to you.

But let me remind you, this is the chapter about love. To really be in love is to know everything and still love. That can be the reality of a true marriage, and true partnership, to know everything and still love. And that is that way God is with us. To God we are already transparent. God knows and sees everything there is to know about us, and God still loves us. When we become like God, that is how we shall be. We shall be able to see and know everything there is to know about ourselves and each other, and we shall still love. Love abides, and love knows everything! Love knows everything and still lasts!

“Bless be the day, that apple token was; therefore we be singing, deo gracias.”

Amen.

1 – Fox, Everett, Genesis and Exodus, A New English Rendition Translated with commentary and notes, (Schocken Books, New York, 1983), p.17
2 – Ibid., p.21