Who Told You That?, by Rev Steven R Mitchell, Mountain View United, Aurora, CO

Who Told You That? By Rev Steven R Mitchell Mountain View United, Aurora 6/10/2012 Based on Genesis 3:8-13 This morning’s texts is a discussion on “relationships”, relationship between man and his helpmate, relationship between the man and his environment, and relationship between humanity and God. The first two chapters of Genesis has been dealing with the creation of all things, of the universe, of the sky, the moon, the stars, and the sun, of the land and the water, of life as it starts in the sea, then in the air and finally upon the land. Eventually we see God ending this creative activity with the creation of the human. It is here in chapter three that we start to understand the relational side of God with this creation and more specifically between humanity and its creator. To be truthful, this is the only perspective that as humans we can look at, because we can only look at our relationship with God through the lens of being human. We cannot look at how other mammals or reptiles or plant life relates to creation because we do not have the capacity to relate on any of those levels. I am positive that all things created by God, do in fact relate to God, but I will never know how that looks, because I am only capable of doing my processing through the lens of being human. In this morning’s story we have four characters: the man and woman, the serpent, and God. The overview of this story is this: After God has finished creating all the earth and all that lives upon the earth, a man and woman are given the assignment to care for God’s creation. They have full freedom to do anything that they want, except for one thing. “See those two trees in the middle of this garden?” “Stay away from those two trees, you are not allowed to eat any of its fruit. You have all that you need or could ever possibly be able to use with all these other plants and trees, but just don’t eat from those two trees in the center of the garden.” So the man and woman listen to God and go about their business of tending to the garden. Enters the “serpent”, he and the woman strike up a conversation in which the serpent suggests to the woman a possibility as to why God doesn’t want her to eat from this tree. It was suggested that if she were to eat from the tree, she then would be just as wise as the Creator, knowing good from evil. She eventually eats the fruit and also shares it with the man, and indeed, they begin to view life differently, at which point our texts picks up. This story has been used throughout time in a total spectrum of ways to explain every human condition possible, but too often it has been used as a weapon of shame and blame and as a way to control, instead of being used as another example of God’s love. I have a movie that is currently loaned out which deals with another way of looking at human sexuality that I would have loved to share a clip from titled Adam and Steve, just the way God made them. In this story, it shows the traditional story of Adam and Eve, and how Eve dukes the slow witted Adam into eating the fruit. Of course they get expelled from the garden. God is pretty bummed out about how his experiment with humans ended in failure, when a chorus line of male angels do a song and dance routine that encourages God to try again, which God does, but this time God decided to create Adam and Steve. As the story goes, Adam and Steve are happily being innovative and artistic, such as learning how to make fruit into alcoholic beverages and creating decorative glasses in which to drink from. Now there is a fence that separates the garden from the wilderness and while Adam and Steve are blissfully living in the garden, you see a contentious relationship between Adam and Eve. Eve looks enviously on the lavish gifts that God seems to continuously bestowing on Adam and Steve, as she looks around the barren environment that they were presently living in, always feeling that she is lacking and not receiving all that she deserves or needs from God. This is the story that the theological concept of “original” sin is grounded in, this is the story that gives the reason for God sending his son as a sacrifice, this is the story that sets the boundaries of human sexuality, to name just a few. Some or maybe all of these concepts that I’ve just mentioned may ring some truth to you or possibly not. But how we approach many of today’s turmoil’s come from some of the early arguments of such men as Augustine, who articulated the concept of original sin - this idea that we were created with an inerrant sinful behavior. It has been so engrained into society ever since that it seems to have a ring of truth to it. Yet, if we compare that theology to the creation story itself, it goes against what God said about what God created. After each and every day, God pronounced what had been created as good. In fact after God had finished creating man and woman, God pronounced us very good. So for this theologian, I have had to re-examine much of Christian theology and ask the question, is this consistent with God’s pronouncement. As I mentioned at the opening of this reflection, this story is about relationships: relationships specifically between humanity and God. It is the quintessential love story between God and creation. The basic idea that this story deals with is the basic story that each of us face every day in our own life’s, that of buying into a lie. The lie is, we are created less than who we are. Quoting some basic ideas from the book Genesis: The Book of Beginnings, by David Leach who was the person who helped guide me through my ordination process, a thousand years ago presents this view: If Adam and Eve eat of the fruit, they will become “like God.” If they succumb to the temptation, the difference between God and humanity could be eliminated. Pg 18 We have man/woman (who have been pronounced as being very good, which implies “complete”) being presented by a third party, the serpent, that just possibly God didn’t give them all that they needed, that by eating the fruit from this one particular tree, they will somehow become truly complete and be just like God. The lie is that somehow we are not “whole” in the eyes of God, that if we only had this, or were only this way, we would then be who God intends us to be. The lie is that for some reason, God did not provide us with everything that we need to be complete. Every day, we are confronted with the idea that we are lacking in something. Not one of us hasn’t had to deal with self-esteem issues, “Gee if I could only look like Susan, then I could have any man that I wanted”, or “If I were taller I could be a better basketball player”, “if only this” or “if only that”, if only…you fill in the words. Then we have the lies that society as a whole tell us: you have to be straight to be loved and acceptable to God, you have to be white or at least act “white” in order to have the privilege to gain access in American culture, you have to be Christian to have a relationship with God! All of these speak to what happens when culturally we buy into the lie that - somehow we are less than what God intended for us. In our text it says, “God was walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and God said, ‘Where are you?’” This section doesn’t say God knew they had eaten from the tree that was forbidden, it doesn’t say God came walking in the garden looking to scold the man and woman. It say’s, God came looking for the man and woman, the implication being, God was looking to spend time with them. They are the ones who ran away out of “embarrassment”, hiding themselves, not only from God, but also from one another in the act of covering themselves. When God asked them “why did you run and hid from me”, they responded saying, “we hid because we were naked.” God asked, “Who told you this”. The question really was, “what makes you believe you didn’t have everything that you needed?” For all of us there is this struggle with self-worth and personal significance, the “Who am I” that is represented as the serpent in today’s story. It is in this question that positions us to be vulnerable to multiple lies that if accepted, separate us from relationship and community. But when we approach the question as “Who am I in God?” then we are positioning ourselves to hearing the truths that God has for us, which deepen our relationship with God and community. For God so loved the world that through his Son, none should parish but have “life anew”. Jesus’ whole message was telling us that God is love, love exists only in relationship and community to him. It’s not the question of “who am I” but rather, “who am I in God?” Amen