Sermon Notes: Genesis 3.1-13; Psalm 25; Rom 7.7-12; Matt 7.24-27

 Prayer of Invocation

Father, because without you we are not able to bear fruit, mercifully grant that your Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and

for ever. Amen.

Prayer of Illumination

 

Father, open our eyes to the ways that we are deceived and enticed; enable us to trust in your goodness and provision; grant us patience as we wait for You to teach us and make us what you want us to be.  Teach us to keep in step with the Spirit, who is conforming us to Your Son, Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen. 

Proclamation

At many times, and in many ways, we come to a fork in the road,  where we ask ourselves, Is God good? Should I continue to trust him? Does he really have my best interest in mind? Is he really going to deliver on his promise? 

Sometimes that junction comes in the form of a disorienting event that seems to contradict God’s pledge to protect us. At other times the fork in the road emerges because our life doesn't seem to be working out quite like we thought it would: “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths (Prov 3.5-6).” But what happens when the path is not straight? What happens when he leads you into “the valley of the shadow of death (Ps 23.4),” or the “dark night of the soul”?

But more often than not, the fork in the road comes in a thousand small daily encounters with competing promises that entice us to question God’s character, that appeal to our desire for self-rule and independence, and that cater to our impatience: “I really need a good grade on this exam, or I really need this job, or this career advancement, or this money. I can’t afford to wait on God. Besides, I am not even sure he’s paying attention. Go ahead, cut a corner. It’s ok. Nothing bad will happen.”  

Or, “I feel so alone, so unseen. I can’t wait on God anymore, and I am not sure he even cares. I’ll try looking at these images; they will surely give me some relief. Or maybe that co-worker or acquaintance will make me feel better.”

One of the overlooked functions of Genesis 3 is to address this particular struggle in life, this junction that we find ourselves in from time to time where we are enticed to question God’s character, where we are allured with the prospect of not having to depend upon someone else, where we are confronted with a competing promise, and where we are presented with the option of getting what we want and need without having to wait for it. We see this in shocking fashion in Genesis 3.7. Although, because the passage is so familiar to most Christians, it has often lost its shock value, the disorienting lesson it seeks to teach us. 

If we have been paying close attention to the narrative of Genesis 1-2 thus far, what happens in Genesis 3.7 is completely disorienting. In Genesis 1, every word that the LORD utters springs into actuality. Light appears. Waters are separated. Earth is formed. Birds, land animals, and humans emerge into existence, all with a word. And every word is met with God’s delight: “it is good!” God’s words are powerful, beautiful, and life-giving. 

So when God charges Adam to eat of every tree in the garden except for that one tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for if you eat of it you shall surely die, we have every reason to expect that this indeed is the case—that he and Eve will die if they eat it. But they don’t–at least not in the way we might have anticipated. 

Instead we are disoriented by a crafty, cunning talking serpent, who first misrepresents what God has said (“Did God say ‘you shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?), then, at Eve’s rebuttal (‘We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but not the one in the midst of the garden, nor shall we touch it lest we die’), he suggests that God’s warning was nothing but an empty threat. This is followed with the proposal that God is in some way holding back something good from Eve, or perhaps that he is afraid that they might gain something that he doesn’t want them to have. With one question, and two deceptive suggestions that call God’s character and goodness into question, the serpent has Eve imagining a different kind of life, a life in which she can be like God, but  in a way that God has not sanctioned or permitted. She looks at the fruit and sees in it benefits, blessings she might even think,  and a promise that she finds very appealing: pleasure, delight, insight and wisdom—all  without having to wait on or depend upon God. Banking on the reliability of this promise, she takes the fruit and eats it. And she gives some to Adam, who apparently has been standing with her the whole time, silent. 

And here is the shocking part: they take and eat, and they do not die! What is more, their eyes are opened, just like the serpent said! What are we to make of this unanticipated outcome? Was the crafty serpent telling us the truth? Might it know something about God that we don’t yet know? Are we right to question God’s promises and commands?  Is God like a parent or caretaker that makes vain threats? Was God keeping something good from Adam and Eve? Are his commands and prohibitions keeping us from good things? 

They ate, and they did not die. They ate, and their eyes were opened. 

There are a number of clues in the text that suggest something more complex is going on, that the promise of the fruit did not actually deliver as expected. Yes, their eyes were opened, but with this new vision comes  shame, symbolized in Adam and Eve being ashamed at their nakedness before God. What is more, their intimate fellowship with God has now been transformed: now God’s presence with them stimulates fear, so much so that they try to hide from him in the garden. The man who once celebrated the woman’s companionship with a poem—“This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh (Gen 2.23)!”--now see her as a trouble maker— “The woman who you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” 

A loss of innocence. Shame. Alienation from the God of life. Estrangement and broken relationships with one another and with creation. These are what the promising fruit delivered. Yes, their eyes were opened, but in ways that were destructive, fragmenting the shalom that God provided for them. Genesis 4-11 fills out the devastating effects of their eyes being opened; jealousy that leads to murder; subtraction instead of being fruitful and multiplying (Gen 4); the celebration of vengeance and violence; increasing corruption on earth, so bad that “every intention of the thoughts of [humandkind’s] heart was only evil continually (Gen 6.5)”; a loss of purpose, identity, and true belonging; curses instead of blessings. In an attempt to fill the void, humanity gathers together to use technology to try and reach up to God and make a name for themselves—the very thing that God already promised to give them. 

In a very nuanced manner, Genesis 3 is teaching us that death is more than just the cessation of life in biological terms. The serpent deceived Eve, getting her to question God’s goodness, inverting God’s abundant permission (‘you can eat of any tree in the garden except that one tree’) by turning it all into prohibition, filling God’s silence regarding why the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was in the garden in the first place as a cause for suspicion. And after imagining a life in which she did not need to be patient, a life in which she did not need to depend upon God for the provision of wisdom, she places her hope in the promise of the fruit. And she did die. They both died. Because they, we, were made to be in a dependent, intimate, partnership with God. And without God, life falls apart, for we have no other refuge, no other source of healing. 

This shocking and perplexing story of Genesis 3 is given such a prominent place in the Bible because it teaches us a foundational, enduring lesson that we face over and over again: God can be trusted, even when we don’t understand all of his commandments. God can be trusted, even when it looks like he doesn’t bring immediate judgment upon those who rebel against his rule. Stepping outside of God’s promises, disregarding God’s commandments, may seem to be liberating, even “eye-opening”, but it brings a more complex form of death than we ever anticipated, a death that is more than biological. The promise of the fruit is a misleading, deceptive promise. It does not deliver what is hoped for. 

What ‘fruit’ are you enticed by? What are those things that lie outside of God’s permission that call to you? What do they promise you? And do they deliver on their promises? This is what Genesis 3 invites us to contemplate. 

Genesis 3 awakens us to a struggle that we all face at many times and in many ways. The struggle is not as simple as us not wanting to obey God’s word; instead, Genesis 3 teaches us that our struggle is more foundational than that. At our core, we find it hard to trust God, to wait for his provision. We would rather get what we want and need on our terms, in our own timing, without having to depend upon God. 

Genesis 3 also reminds us that we live in a three-person drama. It is not just us and God.  There is also a cunning agent in the world that is seeking to deceive us, to alienate us from intimacy with God by presenting us with false promises that entice us to question the life-giving words that God has given us, trying to get us to find promise in that which God did not give us. Paul in Romans 7 calls this Sin. Genesis 3 reminds us that Sin is subtle, deceptive, alluring, and enticing; that it appeals to our deepest desires and insecurities; that it presents itself as beneficial to us. 

The call of Genesis 3, is the prayer of Psalm 25: 

O my God, in you I trust; let me not be put to shame; let not my enemies exult over me. Indeed none who wait for you shall be put to shame…make me to know your ways, O LORD; teach me your paths. Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all the day long (Psa 25.2-5)

The promise of the fruit was to not have to trust in God, to not have to wait for God’s teaching of good and evil. But the call of God is for us to be patient; to wait for his timing; to open ourselves up for him to teach us his paths, in his timing. 

Read Psa 25.12-15. 

The call of Genesis 3 is the call of Jesus at the end of his sermon on the mount: ‘hear these words of mine, and do them. For you will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock (Matt 7.24-25)’.

And the warning of Genesis 3 is the warning of Jesus: “Everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it (Matt 7.26-27)

The challenge of Genesis 3, is to reflect on the way in which temptation subtly works in our lives. But the text also challenges us to reflect on the way in which God works in our lives: we get what we need by waiting, by trusting God, by learning from him in his timing. God is not in a hurry. 

Eucharist

Each Sunday, the alluring fruit of our lives, which entice us and offer us promises that don’t deliver,  are met with the promise-delivering fruit of the vine. Each Sunday, the Table meets us at our fork in the road as we struggle with the fruit that is presented to us as an enticing promise. Is God good? Can he be trusted? Is his word reliable? Is waiting on the Lord worth it? Is patience better than grabbing the fruit and eating? Is God keeping something good from us? The Table responds, taste this fruit and see that the LORD is good:

“He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Rom 8.32)

Trust in the LORD. Wait on the LORD. He will make his ways known to you. He will teach you his paths. He will lead you in truth and teach you. All the paths of the LORD are steadfast love and faithfulness. Build your house on the rock. 

And if you’ve eyes have been opened, and you realize that you’ve taken the bait, that you’ve placed your hope in the promise of the fruit that cannot deliver, hear the gracious call of God at this Table, who, filled with compassion, moves toward you in your deception and rebellion and says, “Where are you?”  

Benediction

Trust in the LORD at all times; pour out your heart before him; for God is our refuge and our strength, a present help in our time of need.