“There was a young man of Hong Kong
who thought limericks far too long…”
Some of you are smiling…either you’re humouring me, or you just did something very clever. You recognised that was a limerick – a silly sort of poem – then recognised it was only part of a limerick – and saw that the humour was in it being a parody of a limerick. Brilliant!
We do it all the time – we use type of language, length of lines, how it’s arranged on a page, to recognise what kind of literature we’re reading…and so how to respond. I guess you’re not wondering who the man from Hong Kong was, why he thought limericks too long, whether this should affect your view of limericks…you just enjoyed the joke – or didn’t.
It’s a kind of unwritten agreement between author and reader, where the type of writing decides how we read it. The writer of information books expects us to take the words at face value – to assume she’s tried to ensure they’re literally true. The writer of instruction manuals expects at least some of us to realise they’re best read before we try out our new gadget. The fiction writer expects us to know he will use metaphors that are not to be taken literally.
And we’re very good at this…except sometimes when it comes to the Bible. The bible, inspired, we believe, by God, is so precious that we forget it contains many different kinds of writing.
Tonight we heard the second creation account. The fact we have two contradictory accounts suggests we’re not expected to take either literally. Anyway, it doesn’t read like an information text – much more like a story. And we expect stories to use metaphors, pictures, to grapple with truths that are beyond literal explanation.
To me this passage isn’t trying to explain how the world came to be – but wrestling with questions like, ‘why is the world such a strange mixture of beauty and evil?’ And that makes it much more relevant to us today – because it’s surely a question we all struggle with.
Once I read the story in this way, it makes me think…
…and mainly, this week, I’ve thought about that tree of knowledge. Why was it forbidden? Why was it more dangerous, and more desirable, than the tree of life? Perhaps the writer’s exploring what sin is and how knowledge is often at the heart of it. So I’ve been thinking about how knowledge relates to sin – and what that means for us today.
In modern times we’ve tended to think knowledge is good. When my Granny was small – before knowledge of antibiotics – her school was closed due to a Diphtheria outbreak. When it reopened, a quarter of the children had died.
Of course, knowledge is not always used for good. The discovery of nuclear fission led to nuclear weapons as well as nuclear power.
But I think one reason knowledge is dangerous is that deciding whether we are using it for good or evil is often not obvious.
We’re now able to identify genetic abnormalities in un-born children. Parents who are likely to pass on horrific genetic diseases can choose to end, or never to start, pregnancies that will lead to short, painful lives…a good thing?
Parents can discover whether their child is, for example, a Down’s syndrome baby. In Iceland, this knowledge leads so routinely to termination that in 2017 there were no Down’s syndrome children born there. It’s likely that by 2030 there’ll not be a single living person with Down’s in Denmark. An Icelandic geneticist said recently that before it was developed, this test was seen as the Holy Grail of medicine. Now he says “it’s scary”. Is this use of knowledge good? Is it evil? Should we be making this choice?
In this country, the law allows for termination of pregnancies if there is a risk of disability. However, when two deaf parents wished to choose a deaf embryo – so their child could be fully part of their, deaf, community – the law did not allow this.
On one hand, deliberately bringing a disabled child into the world seems wrong. But is it really different to non-disabled parents wanting a child who will fit more easily into their world? To the disabled community this might suggest the law does not value their lives – that they’re unworthy even to be born.
I have no simple answers. That’s the problem, and beauty, of our scriptures. They’re not lists of instructions for every eventuality – they’re stories, poems, histories, visions that wrestle with truth, and invite us to do the same.
“Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day you eat of it you shall die.”
What does that mean for me thousands of years later?
Well the writer of genesis clearly had no inkling that genetic screening would one day exist, but I think he did understand how knowledge leads us so easily away from God, how dangerous knowledge can be. For me, this story is not a factual account of how sin came to exist – but a recognition of the danger that comes with knowledge and a reminder that all knowledge demands a Christian response.
This week that passage from Genesis has reminded me that I should think about how we use knowledge; that I should think about it in light of my Christian faith; that I should pray about it. That whether I understand the science or not, I should engage with discussions about what we do with new knowledge.
This week the General Synod of the Church of England will be discussing what Christianity has to say about pre-natal screening. Of course this is just one example of knowledge – but I think it shows how knowledge can separate us from God. It reminds us that Christ is the lens through which we should look at all aspects of life.