Just Another Day in the Garden
Rev. Eugene N. Nelson, Jr.
The Community Church of Sebastopol
February 13, 2005 The First Sunday in Lent
Genesis 2: 15-17; 3: 1-7
Teacher and preacher, Barbara Brown Taylor, shares this story: “I remember watching a grandfather play in a swimming pool with this grandson, who was about two years old at the time. The boy was big for his age and a real handful, trying to writhe out of his grandfather’s arms in order to test the water for himself. His grandfather held onto him, afraid that he would drown, but the more he tried to hang on, the harder the child pushed away. Finally the boy scooped up a handful of water and flung it at his grandfather, only he misjudged the distance and wound up slapping him in his face. I remember the smack, then the silence, then the roar. In a flash of anger, his grandfather shouted at him and shook him hard. The boy went limp and silent in his arms. He had never heard his grandfather’s voice like that, had never seen his face like that, had never been hurt by him in any way. Looking on, I saw their primal relationship ruptured in that moment. Their perfect bond was broken. And while the moment passed, things would never be the same again. The child had lost his innocence.”
I wonder if the story of that grandfather and his grandson resonates anywhere in your life? Can you think of a moment of lost innocence? The first time you saw a parent’s change lying on a table and you slipped a quarter into your pocket? Being told in a harsh voice, “It’s all your fault!” Screaming at your own child in a moment when all patience had run out? Can you think of a moment of lost innocence - a moment when you had a choice to make and made what proved to be the wrong one? I once read about a sign in the town of Big Sandy, Texas. It was about 20 feet high and 20 feet wide, and read: “FIVE HIGHWAYS MEET HERE. FOUR CHANCES TO GO WRONG!” Has such a sign ever appeared in your life? So many chances in life to go wrong, to choose the wrong direction, again, to lose our innocence. Which is why the story of Adam and Eve in the garden has such power, such a timeless quality. For at its heart, it is a story about us.
As I read this story about our primordial parents, I have to agree with Barbara Brown Taylor when she says, “Long before there were preachers and churches and organized religion, there were essential human experiences of community and alienation, of connection and disconnection from the divine.” Consider: Before there was anything like a church doctrine of original sin, a story was told about a man and a woman – the first man and woman – who lived in a beautiful garden filled with everything they needed, including the close, loving, sheltering presence of God. There was only one thing in the entire garden they could not have, only one thing God commanded them to leave alone, and that was God’s own tree. “Eat anything you want,” said God, “but keep your hands off the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Do not eat its fruit, for if you do, you will be sorry.”
So of course, from that moment on it was the only thing they wanted. “OK, kids, you can have these five cookies, but you are not allowed to have that one.” Which one are they going to want? “Now while I’m gone, don’t put a pencil up your nose….” Ah, the forbidden fruit…so tempting. As soon as you tell me I can’t have it, I want it. And besides, this particular fruit had magical powers – it was what made God God. At least, that’s what the snake said.
Ah, the snake. He seemed to take a real interest in Adam and Eve. He explained things to them, things God had not explained. He told them all about the tree, that they would not die if they ate its fruit. Then he left them to make their own decision. And it did not take them long. In Taylor’s words, “In the first recorded act of human initiative, they decided for themselves what was best for them. They exercised their freedom to disobey God’s command, ate the fruit and wound up standing on the curb outside the garden with their battered suitcases lying beside them on the ground. The snake was right – they did not die as God had said, but it was the end of life as they had known it. In one afternoon they lost everything: their paradise, their innocence, their intimacy with God. All it took was one stupid, willful decision, and there was no going back…From the moment they left the garden, life was hard, life was painful, life was forever out of whack.”
Taylor concludes, “It is a wonderful story, not because there are not problems in it, but because it tells the truth about the way things really are. We really are free to make disastrous decisions. Our choices really do have consequences. And there really are some flaws in the system, whether they come in the form of talking snakes or in the form of this almost biological urge we have to choose the things that are the most ruinous for us and for the whole creation.”
Just another day in the garden. I am not going to argue or even suggest that the story of Adam and Eve is literally true. I am not even going to suggest that there really were an Adam and Eve. Because it doesn’t really matter to me, because the story…the story remains true. Their story is our story and because of that it needs to be told again and again and again. I think of the words of the Apostle Paul from Romans 7: “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate…I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.” I hope that as the administration’s proposed budget is discussed, our elected officials in Washington remember those words. Without even mentioning Adam and Eve, Paul expresses the truth of their story, and of the human story. “The evil I do not want is what I do.”
Let’s dare to pay careful attention to this ancient story of Adam and Eve and their fateful decision. Because in the midst of our success-worshipping, power-seeking, feel-good, I have all I need culture, it dares to suggest that just maybe we’ve lost our way, that we have gone astray, somehow missed the mark; that we have preferred our wills to God’s will and now can’t quite seem to get ourselves home again. I recall a cartoon which showed a young woman saying to her doctor: “What can I do to feel better without giving up what’s making me feel awful?” Sounds like 21st century America to me! And that is exactly why we need to return to Adam and Eve and the garden. Because in a time when self-help, self-congratulation and self-protection have become the new American Gospel, this story dares to move us in another direction.
And it is here, in its honesty, that I hear a message of hope. The good news of this brutally honest story is that God just cannot seem to leave us alone. It is a great image: just as Adam and Eve leave the garden, what does God do? He fashions them a wardrobe -- gives them clothes. Just at that moment when God should wash God’s hands of the whole human enterprise, when we should be left to wander east of Eden for all time, God chooses to love us back into relationship.
A final story, told by David Shirey, a Christian Church, Disciples of Christ pastor: “Once, as a seven-year-old, I got very angry over something, told my mom I hated her and that I was running away from home. Before I left, I trashed my room, making the biggest mess I could. I then stormed down the steps and headed through the kitchen on my way out the back door. My mother asked me on the way out, “How about a jacket?”
“A jacket? Why would I want a jacket?”
“Well, if you’re leaving for a while, you are going to get cold.”
“I don’t want a jacket!”
“Then how about something to eat. You’ll get hungry and I just made some brownies.”
“Well, OK, I will take a few brownies.” But as soon as I had those brownies in hand, I was out the door.
But when I stepped off the back porch into the yard, I heard these words from the kitchen, “I love you.” Imagine that. In spite of all I’d done and was still doing, she insisted on clothing me and feeding me and telling me she loved me.”
“And that,” says Shirey “sounds like the tail end of Genesis 3 to me. Here’s the plot of the entire Bible and this season of Lent in a nutshell: God’s goodness is scarred by our sin and willfulness, but still we are met again and again and again by God’s persistent love.” God just won’t give up on us.
And so again, in this ancient story, there is hope. Because through the darkness of our failures, our stubbornness, our refusal to be the people God calls us to be, there is light – the light of grace, the light of forgiveness, the light of love – always calling us back into relationship with God, with one another, even with ourselves…always calling us back. So we can dare to be truthful and honest about ourselves, about our lives, because always there is this love, this relationship, this God who simply will not allow us remain lost, who will come to us and bring us home, no matter what it takes, no matter where it leads, no matter what the cost. Praise be to God!