Fall and Exile from The Garden of Eden—Adults September 13, 2015
All page numbers refer to pages in The Book of Common Prayer.
Where do we find the themes of the story of the fall and exile in our Episcopal tradition?
Today in the worship service, we will be using Eucharistic Prayer C. In this prayer, we acknowledge our sinfulness. Take a look at page 370 in The Book of Common Prayer. How does this prayer describe our sinfulness?
How do we acknowledge our sinfulness each Sunday when we celebrate the Eucharist? See Page 360. Spend some time thinking over this prayer and some examples from your life in this past week that would fall into these various categories of sin for which you want to repent.
Why do you think the General Confession is placed in this part of the service?
Sometimes when the General Confession isn’t enough "to cleanse us from our sin" (Ps 51), we can use the Reconciliation of a Penitent, a private confession made to a priest. This Rite has two forms, and they are found in the BCP, beginning on page 447. Take some time to look at these forms of confession and think about how using this rite could be helpful to you as you try to grow in faith.
We most frequently hear the story of the fall in Lent. We recognize the finitude of our lives and bodies—without God, there is death, at our Ash Wednesday service. As the ashes are placed on our heads, we hear these words that God said to Adam and Eve as God sent them out of the Garden of Eden, "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return." But we are not left in hopelessness. The mark made on our forehead with ashes is the sign of the cross to remind us that in Christ–and through his own death and resurrection—there is life.
Not all Christian denominations understand creation and sin the same way. Anglicans believe that creation is good because God made it. And we believe that humanity is good, though we do fall into sin. We do not believe in the "total depravity of humanity." God made us, blessed us, and called our creation "very good." We turned away from God, but we are not inherently evil. We do sin, but we cannot blame our sins on other people, or on the devil, the serpent, or any other personification of evil.
From the curriculum Weaving God’s Promises