Flowers, Birds, Freedom, and Faith. Is It Possible?

What is the point of the Adam and Eve story?

Disobedience and punishment?

Lost innocence?

A proper creator-creature relationship?

There is truth in each of these, but there is also a larger lesson that often gets missed. Because Christians often focus on a process of sin-guilt-pardon, we can miss the tantalizing truth about freedom and eternal life that Genesis 2 and 3 reveal.

Adam and Eve show us that we are created to be free, living moment to moment in complete trust that God has provided everything we need. In this ideal state, we are free from worry, fear, desire, ambition, greed, jealousy, and anger. We are free to take what we need and enjoy God’s creation for today, without concern for what might happen tomorrow.

This sort of freedom does exist for real people in today’s world, but it is rare. It is what Jesus describes in the Sermon on the Mount, with his references to the “birds of the air” and the “lilies of the field.” 

“They neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all of his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, you of little faith?”  (Matthew 6: 28-30)

The flowers and the birds, and in effect all of God’s creatures (except humans, of course), are still living in the ideal state described in Genesis 2. They enjoy the freedom that comes from not worrying about what they might need, and not being concerned about tomorrow. They live from moment to moment, completely dependent upon God.

Jesus seems to be saying that human beings could live this way, too. If we choose, we can find that same sort of freedom. in other words, we can avoid the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and instead choose the Tree of Life.

In the next post, I will examine two major problems in this understanding of freedom. First, humans have intellectual capacities that birds and flowers do not. Does this make Jesus’ comparison unfair? Second, life in the natural world might be free, but it can also be cruel. Is that really a state of being we want to aspire to? Isn’t it a very good thing that humans have the ability to worry about and plan for tomorrow?