Genesis 3.3-24, February 11, 2018
Genesis
2.4b - 9 On the day the Lord God made earth and sky— 5 before any wild
plants appeared on the earth, and before any field crops grew, because
the Lord God hadn’t yet sent rain on the earth and there was still no
human being to farm the fertile land, 6 though a stream rose from the
earth and watered all of the fertile land— 7 the Lord God formed the
human from the topsoil of the fertile land[e] and blew life’s breath
into his nostrils. The human came to life. 8 The Lord God planted a
garden in Eden in the east and put there the human he had formed. 9 In
the fertile land, the Lord God grew every beautiful tree with edible
fruit, and also God grew the tree of life in the middle of the garden
and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Genesis 3.3-24
The snake was the most intelligent of all the wild animals that the Lord God had made.
He
said to the woman, “Did God really say that you shouldn’t eat from any
tree in the garden?” The woman said to the snake, “We may eat the fruit
of the garden’s trees but not the fruit of the tree in the middle of the
garden. God said, ‘Don’t eat from it, and don’t touch it, or you will
die.’”
The
snake said to the woman, “You won’t die! God knows that on the day you
eat from it, you will see clearly and you will be like God, knowing good
and evil.”
The
woman saw that the tree was beautiful with delicious food and that the
tree would provide wisdom, so she took some of its fruit and ate it, and
also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then
they both saw clearly and knew that they were naked. So they sewed fig
leaves together and made garments for themselves.
During
that day’s cool evening breeze, the heard the sound of the Lord God
walking in the garden; and the man and his wife hid themselves from the
Lord God in the middle of the garden’s trees. The Lord God called to the
man and said to him, “Where are you?”
The man replied, “I heard your sound in the garden; I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself.”
God said, “Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat from the tree, which I commanded you not to eat?”
The man said, “The woman you gave me, she gave me some fruit[c] from the tree, and I ate.”
The Lord God said to the woman, “What have you done?!”
And the woman said, “The snake tricked me, and I ate.”
The
Lord God said to the snake, “Because you did this, you are the one
cursed out of all the farm animals, out of all the wild animals. On your
belly you will crawl, and dust you will eat every day of your life. I
will put contempt between you and the woman, between your offspring and
hers. They will strike your head, but you will strike at their heels.”
To
the woman God said, “I will make your pregnancy very painful; in pain
you will bear children. You will desire your husband, but he will rule
over you.”
To
the man he said, “Because you listened to your wife’s voice and you ate
from the tree that I commanded, ‘Don’t eat from it,’ cursed is the
fertile land because of you; in pain you will eat from it every day of
your life. Weeds and thistles will grow for you, even as you eat the
field’s plants; by the sweat of your face you will eat bread— until you
return to the fertile land, since from it you were taken; you are soil,
to the soil you will return.”
The man named his wife Eve because she is the mother of everyone who lives.
The Lord God made the man and his wife leather clothes and dressed them.
The
Lord God said, “The human being has now become like one of us, knowing
good and evil.” Now, so he doesn’t stretch out his hand and take also
from the tree of life and eat and live forever, the Lord God sent him
out of the garden of Eden to farm the fertile land from which he was
taken. God drove out the human. To the east of the garden of Eden, God
stationed winged creatures wielding flaming swords to guard the way to
the tree of life.
SERMON (PASTOR)
Last
Sunday at church, in the Fellowship Hall, I sat across from Fran
Burgess, as loudly as I spoke, trying to face her, deliberately so my
voice would include her in the conversation, her face stared blankly
ahead. Other’s said when they talked with her, everything seemed fine.
Perhaps it was moment that I read wrong, or perhaps after hospital
chaplaincy, and being a pastor, one gets a sixth sense when life is
slipping.
Two days later,
I had one of the hardest visits I’ve ever had to do. For years, I have
been picking up Fran and driving us over to her best friend Anne
Kirkpatrick’s house. For some reason Anne’s house is in an odd spot for
me to remember if it is on 3rd or 2nd and after dozens of times asking
Fran reminded me without even the question. Once there the two best
friends, since their twenties, catch up, have coffee and cookies which
Anne’s caregiver puts out. I turn on the pot and serve the cookies with
plates and napkins. Both women take their coffee black, and Anne quips
each time, “I think we’ll keep you!” Then, after the coffee has been
refilled once but before our time over, I set up communion, and in tiny
plastic cups and bread brought from church, Christ’s last supper is
served.
The
morning of Fran’s passing, I went alone to Anne’s house. It was my turn
to remember it was on second street, and it was odd to navigate the
steps and the two doors without Fran’s tiny stature on my arm, a warmth
many of us will miss. I leaned down to Anne in her chair and gave a hug,
and she said, “My heart is breaking.” I can only imagine I said. Having
thought so often in the last couple days, of what that might be like
sixty years from now with my best friend Lisa. You have watched so many
friends, and so many loved ones pass away before you. I said. At 93,
Anne nodded, “God still must have something left for me to do here,” she
said. “You are a really special mom, and grandpa, and great-grandma,” I
responded. And while I am not sure, if unfinished business is why or
how death really works, I am glad God has stationed winged creatures
with flaming swords in front of the tree of life, that we may not live
forever.
I
am not saying that life isn’t precious, and wonderful and joyous. This
is fertile land with a stream running through it, this is the land of
family and of generations. You could know that easily just from
listening to Anne tell stories of she and Fran at church picnics and
family vacations with their kids. But that just as God tried to keep
Adam and Eve from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, I am glad that
God has so too stopped us from living forever and eating from tree of
life. We have been protected from understanding of why or when we will
die and I think there is a grace in that. In the not knowing. In Fran
and Anne meeting and not having to think about that seventy years later
the pastor would be coming to Anne’s door. My dad and a singer at my
home church have a deal that he will do her eulogy if she sings at his
funeral. It’s funny, but it also points to the grace of not knowing
when, that we can laugh at life’s uncertainty, rather than live in
predestined parameters. I wonder if this grace of unknowing changes how
we live, that like Adam and Eve before, ‘The Fall,” there is a
lightness which we carry. Before the fall they knew they were naked
without shame, they knew no punishment, they had no reason to blame. And
after they knew it all, and I wonder what have we been spared from
knowing, from experiencing, from what has God protected us? I am glad to
not know. I am glad to not be able to be convinced to stretch out my
hand and taste that fruit, and offer it, and experience it’s
consequences. I am glad there are winged creatures with flaming swords
and a world between this fertile land and the garden. There is a grace
in not knowing.
Instead,
we rest in that with the breath of life we were formed out of the dust
of the earth, and to that breath and that dust, we shall return, but we
do not know when. Amen.
