Sneaky Sneaky

June 10th

Genesis 3:8-15

⁸They heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. ⁹But the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” ¹⁰He said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.” ¹¹He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” ¹²The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate.” ¹³Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent tricked me, and I ate.” ¹⁴The LORD God said to the serpent,
“Because you have done this,
cursed are you among all animals
and among all wild creatures;
upon your belly you shall go,
and dust you shall eat
all the days of your life.
¹⁵I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers;
he will strike your head,
and you will strike his heel.”

Sneaky, Sneaky

Join me in prayer,

Walk with us God,

And search us out

We often long to run and hide

From your grace

From your love

From you in the face of others

Especially those unlike ourselves

So find us again in the cool of the evening

We’ll be where we always have been

In your care

In the name of the one who came so repair

Those relationships

Hurts

Loves

That we have made vulnerable

Jesus the Christ

Amen.

My favorite Simpson’s episode where Reverend Lovejoy announces that they’ll be playing “In the Garden of Eden” by I. Ron Butterfly.

It’s pretty awesome.  And it’s good to get a chance to preach on Genesis; it doesn’t happen often.

But I wish that Genesis incorporated some elements of a Greek play, like the “Chorus.”

I love ancient Greek plays.  There is something significant about a play where the Chorus, the people looking on, the background music if you will, have a significant role.

In High School English class, the Chorus always ended up being everyone else who didn’t have a named speaking part and, it was odd because it just meant that we explained the plot-line to ourselves, little by little.

But that’s what the Chorus does.  It explains the plotline.

In Euripedes’ play Bacchae, the Chorus throws out this little explanatory warning to the listener:

“Wisdom? It’s not wise
To lift our thoughts too high;
We are human and our time is short.”

It seems that, even in ancient Greek culture, there was this understanding that a person could know too much, that innocence lost was a threat to a peaceful life.  Indeed, our time is short.

Our reading from Genesis this morning could do well with a Chorus to help the hearer out.  You see, we enter into the scene just after Adam and Eve have eaten the forbidden fruit.  They have gained some knowledge: of right and wrong, of good and evil, of nakedness.

But these are not bad things.  We should know right from wrong, good from evil.  We should understand the vulnerability that nakedness brings.  None of these are bad.  Nakedness isn’t bad.

So then, what’s the deal?  What’s the problem?

You see, Genesis 1 and 2 tell of God making this beautiful creation, and Genesis 3 tells us the story of how that creation begins to struggle to live and love together.  In short, we show up on the scene and all of a sudden things get dicey.

This is exactly the reason, by the way, that reality TV always uses one key element to push the drama to the next level: they have the people live together.  It’s a device they learned from Genesis 3.

So here we are, the fruit has been eaten; things are getting interesting.  And if there was a Chorus it might say something like:

And then they began,

With one little bite

To tell the other that they were wrong

And that they themselves were right.

 

Because, contrary to what so many people think or say about this passage, I think that is truly what is going on here: a power struggle that results in broken relationships.  So many people want to say that it’s a story about a forbidden fruit, or about people deceiving one another.  Even many of my atheist friends say this story is just another example of God trying to keep humanity down.

For all of these reasons, I deem this story to be one of the sneakiest in the Scriptures.  I think it’s sneaky sneaky because we can so easily be caught up in one particular element of it, and totally miss the big picture.

You know, many churches today don’t think that it’s good to speak of sin these days.  It isn’t in vogue; it makes people feel bad.  Fortunately, we can’t not talk of sin in our church.  We don’t shy away from topics just because they’re difficult and controversial.

Nadia Bolz-Weber tells a story about her church, a Lutheran mission-start in Denver called “House for All Sinners and Saints.”  She had coffee with a person who started attending the church, and the person said to her, “You know the part I like the best?  It’s the part where we say all those things about our complicity in the world’s ills.  The part where we admit that we’ve done wrong.”

Pr. Bolz-Weber responded, “You mean the confession?  You like the confession the best?”

“Yes,” replied the woman.  “It’s amazing to have so much truth spoken like that in one space.”

In the letter of 1 John chapter 1 verse 8, the writer acts as the Chorus of our lives saying,

If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us…

But I agree; so often sin-talk in churches and communities of faith just end up being guilt-inducers in a way that heaps hurt upon hurt.  Indeed, I know what I’ve done wrong in my life!  I don’t need you to point it out to me!  I feel bad enough about it as it is!

But that’s what happens when you talk about sin in such a way that encourages people to set up their own “sin-recovery” or “sin-management” programs.  You know what I’m talking about; we’ve all tried to do them.

Adam and Eve try to do it, too, in this chapter of Genesis.  What is the first step in their sin-recovery/management program?

They hide.

God, who is the third person in the garden here, comes walking through.  “Adam!” God cries.  “Eve?” God pleads.

And they’re found out.  But what was found out?  No, I don’t think it was that they ate from the forbidden fruit.  That was just the action.

No, what I think was found out was a realization both on their part, and on God’s part, that they acted as if God didn’t matter.  They looked at themselves and began to think that they could act in a way as if God didn’t matter.

So what was step two in the sin-management/recovery program?

Blame.

Adam points to Eve, “She made me do it!  And you gave her to me…”  Eve points to the snake, “The snake made me do it!  And you gave it to us in creation…”

So step two in the blame game is Adam throwing Eve under the bus, pretending she doesn’t matter.  And Eve throwing creation under the bus, pretending creation doesn’t matter.  All the while, if you follow those fingers back around from Adam to Eve to Creation you find them all pointing back to where?

Yes. God.  Sneaky sneaky.  In pointing around in this nice little circle, the finger ends up back on God.

If the Chorus were to pop in at this point, they might sing

And they each pointed to the other

Pretending that they weren’t there

Blame blame blame, they did

All the while, avoiding the stare

 

And they were avoiding the stare.  They had to have been.  Why?  Because this whole time their orientation has been…here.  Looking at their navel.  “We can eat of the forbidden fruit, even though it will ruin our relationship with God.  After all, we can do whatever we want!”

“I can blame Eve for this.  I might have eaten it, but she gave it to me…”

“I can blame the snake, part of creation, for this.  I might have eaten it, but he tricked me…”

“I can buy products that exploit foreign workers.  After all, the economy is bad and these are cheap, and they wouldn’t make them if they didn’t need jobs…”

“I can call him stupid.  After all, he is stupid.”

“I can call her a slut.  After all, she does sleep around.”

“I can use as much gas, wood, coal that I want. I can make bombs as powerful as I want.  I can create as much waste and throw it anywhere I want. After all, the creation was given to me in the first place because I’m the strongest.”

And here the Chorus replies,

From Genesis 3 unto today

Not much has changed

We continue to point, and point, and point

The sneaky sneaky blame is just rearranged.

 

So what is the solution to this sin-management/recovery cycle?

Well, see, this is where people start to get nervous, because what I’m about to say isn’t en vogue, either. We think we can handle it.  So many preachers want to say, “Believe in Jesus to be saved, and sin will become a thing of the past.”  See the message there?  It’s a sneaky way of saying, “If you believe enough, you can handle it.”  Sneaky sneaky.

If the problem of sin starts here, in our navel, in our inability to take into consideration the people, the creation, and God around us, then guess where the solution is not going to be.

Right.  Here.  In your navel.

That’s why sin-management/recovery programs always fail.  Sure, we may stop doing specific actions through programs, therapy, some will-power.  But ultimately our navel gazing gets the best of us.  Actions just replace other actions; the blame continues.  It’s sneaky like that.

No.  God put a moratorium on sin-management/recovery programs through the person of Jesus.  “Love your neighbor as yourself,” Jesus said.  “Love those who hate you, be kind to those who persecute you,” Jesus entreated.

And he healed the sick, those cut off from the rest of humanity by disease.

And he raised the dead, those cut off from the rest of humanity by nature.

And then when humanity had had just about enough of this radical grace and love that Jesus was throwing around a crucified him, God even raised Jesus from the dead, ensuring once and for all that God won’t accept humanity cutting out its members; won’t accept nature having the final say.

Jesus, you see, undoes the story of Genesis 3.  In Jesus the relationship between humanity and humanity, humanity and God, and humanity and creation is repaired in a way that can’t be undone.  We call that The Kingdom.  God’s work through Jesus gives us a glimpse of what it means to live in The Kingdom of God where no one is navel gazing.  It’s like living in the Garden of Eden before the power struggles began.

And this is why our response to sin should be repentance and the acceptance of forgiveness instead of a new sin-management/recovery program.  The work of God through Jesus ensures it.

And this work of Jesus is so comprehensive, so wonderful, so amazing, that I have no problem being the Chorus at the end of someone’s life, at the final act of the play.

And as I stand over their grave, recounting a life full of grace, love, times of failure and times of gladness, all that life is, I say,

And accept, now Lord

A sheep of your own fold

A lamb of your own flock

A sinner of your own redeeming

 

Confident that, whatever brokenness existed in life, is now made whole by the God who doesn’t let death, our sin-management/recovery programs, or our power struggles have the final say.

Amen.