Domination - of women, of nature, of labor - is the anatomy of sin, not the...

February 15, 2025

Domination – of women, of nature, of labor – is the anatomy of sin, not the Creator’s design. Scripture is subtle but clear: all suffering is the natural consequence of listening to a creature’s voice instead of God’s.

Whether patriarchy…

“Because you have done this… he shall rule over you.” -Gn 3:14, 16 (RSV-CE)

…environmental threats to human life…

“Cursed is the ground because of you… thorns and thistles it shall bring forth to you”. -Gn 3:17-18 (RSV-CE)

...or even agriculture and the economic foundations of human culture…

“And you shall eat the plants of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread…” -Gn 3:18-19 (RSV-CE)

…suffering results from human willfulness, not the Divine will. In Scripture, God is merely describing our chosen path, not doling out punishments.

Even death itself is a side effect. Though creaturehood is ours by nature, mortal decay and return to the elements is presented as something new.

“Till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” -Gn 3:19 (RSV-CE)

[Interesting side-note: Notice that humankind is made for the Garden, but not in it.

Created elsewhere, the man is moved to the Garden in a primordial state. When systemic consequences of our choices rupture that state, God makes humankind “garments of skins, and clothed them,” and then “sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken.” -Gn 3:21, 23 (RSV-CE)

Although Sacred Tradition affirms the human creature as both a material and spiritual being, an esoteric reading suggests these garments aren't animal skins but rather the human body itself. This poses the interesting notion that even having a body of ordinary matter may be a consequence of sinful choices. In this reading, though created in a transfigured, spiritual body, the original human being takes on a material existence, perhaps as a kind of existential life-raft from its Creator, a vessel of matter to keep afloat in a sea of broken spiritual relationship.]

Either way, the point is clear: we are punished by our sins, not for them.

So what hope is there?

It is here the early Church Fathers saw the first preaching of the Gospel, when God tells the Serpent, who shall grow through history to become the Great Dragon:

“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” -Gn 3:15 (RSV-CE)

Even in its newly broken spiritual state, God plants in humankind the seed of its own restoration: a future offspring who will end the Serpent's work and remake what it has just unmade. [Perhaps that's why these new bodies of ordinary matter are so necessary?]

Fast forward to today's Gospel reading in the mass, and that work becomes clear: in the desert where nothing grows, Christ feeds those who hear him.

“And he commanded the crowd to sit down on the ground; and he took the seven loaves, and having given thanks he broke them and gave them to his disciples to set before the people; and they set them before the crowd.” -Mk 8:6 (RSV-CE)

Once, Humankind that listened to the Serpent had to seed the hostile soil for food. Now, on that same hostile soil, it listens to the promised Seed and is fed. Before, it took what was God's. Now, it receives.

Listen to the right voice, the Logos of God, and the fundamental relationship to creation shifts from scarcity to abundance. That's the mark of the true disciple.

Beware, then, the faithless teachers, the worldly leader and their false prophet. Their eyes see only scarcity, and their hands can only take. Like the apostles, they look on this world of struggle and ask:

“How can one feed these men with bread here in the desert?” -Mk 8:4 (RSV-CE)

But unlike the true follower, they do not listen to the Lord's response. They take what they want and pass their suffering to others. Do not be like them.

Scripture quotations are from the Catholic Edition of the Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1965, 1966 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.