Genesis 2:1, 7, 15-18, 23-25; 3:1-8, & John 1:1-3 on September 8th, 2024
Above is audio of the sermon pulled from the video and amplified.
Below is transcript pulled from the video and formatted by artificial intelligence. There may be inconsistencies or errors.
Grace, Mercy, and peace to you in the name of our Lord, our Savior, Jesus the Christ. Amen.
So you may have noticed a few changes today as we get on with the new year. We have a Sunday school meeting now between worship services. Nice to see so many kids here for Sunday school and also for the children's message. We have a different liturgy that we're singing from the liturgy that we sang through the summer and we have a very long Old Testament lesson and a very short gospel lesson which makes me think maybe I'm supposed to preach on the Old Testament today.
And that's exactly what I'm supposed to do because we have now moved into a new year of what is known as the narrative lectionary. It's the assigned lessons from week to week that tell a narrative, that tell a story and for this time up till Christmas we're going to have stories from the Old Testament and then from Christmas through the rest the year we'll have stories from the gospels on Jesus. And we do that here and many churches follow the narrative lectionary. I've never served one before that has. So it's kind of new for me to have to preach from the narrative lectionary and this particular text from Genesis.
Anybody here this one before? Adam and Eve and you know a garden and a you know we have so made it common. It's in commercials, it's in children's stories, it's all over the place and we even get some of the details wrong. Did anybody hear anything in the Bible about an apple? Not in there isn't and yet we tell the story all the time. Well Eve taking a bite of the apple. Anybody wonder about well we won't we'll get into all those other details.
This story is in the Bible in the second chapter of Genesis because in the first chapter of Genesis there is a totally different creation story. It's the one where God created every day a little bit more and said it is good right and that's a very compacted creation story different from the one that we read today from Genesis 2 and 3 and you might wonder what is this Bible about that has so many contradictions and things that don't line up and I can get into a whole story about how the Bible came to be and remembering the back in the day probably 500 years before the birth of Jesus.
People did not read or write or text or watch YouTube's. People basically told stories to one another that they wanted remembered and handed down and so all that we have in the Bible is basically what was remembered sometimes memorized from those who had handed it down from an earlier generation and sometimes depending on where you lived and how those stories were tweaked they were a little bit different. We have the same thing going on in the gospels where if you compare Matthew and Luke and some of the parables in both they might reverse the order of things and it's not that the Bible is wrong it's just that the stories were told a little differently.
So when I was in seminary one of my classmates asked a professor is scripture divinely inspired and the professor answered of course and our job is to find out what the truth is that God intends us to carry down. In fact the purpose of a sermon is not just to talk about the story but to apply it to bring God's story into our story.
So that's where I'd like to go with this fairly well-known story about Adam and Eve and yet I think there are some things maybe we don't know about this story. We have that God has formed man from what? The dust of the earth okay in other words we're all made of dirt. Okay when I fell in the mud at the Broad Street School well I was just visiting family. We're all made from dust it's it's humbling to remember that because humus is also a word for dirt and that's the root word for humility for being humble.
So Adam is taken because God has grabbed a handful of dirt and then breathed the spirit of life into Adam. Adam's name comes from Adam the Hebrew word for dirt. So Adam is kind of a humble person and yet God gives him this beautiful garden which will meet his every need and God says that the garden is to be cared for and killed by God but the Hebrew word is more than that it's to be served. This world this creation thank you Angie and you still missed before. Thank you. This world this creation of ours is not just for us to have dominion and take what we want from it because God's given it all to it to us we are supposed to serve it and take care of it and love it and pass it on to the generations that follow. Right there we've got a sermon right it.
We'll try it again. Can you all hear me? Okay. Where was I in the sermon? So looking and taking care of creation and then God brings forth all of the animals and Adam helps name all of the animals. So if you don't like that alliance, alliance, blame Adam, right? But Adam said at the end of all of that because none of those creatures are the sort of companion he wants and needs. He's lonely. He wants someone like himself to relate to. I'm a dog lover. I know we can really love our dogs and have companions with our dogs and they give us a lot of love back and cats do too. I just don't have them. But Adam realizes what we really need is that companion who knows what I'm going through and can be with me and God realizing this creates from Adam's side, from a rib, from the very essence of the dirt that was Adam comes Eve, comes woman, comes the one who is now his partner.
But let me just tell you in verse 18 where it says then the Lord God said it is not good that man should be alone. I will make him a helper as his partner. Wrong answer. I never studied Hebrew. I am not a good student of language. I've been on dual lingo for three years still cannot converse in German. But those that study Hebrew will tell you the word there is not helper. The word there is savior. Azar, the Hebrew word Azar, what God creates for Adam is a savior. Somebody to save him from his loneliness. Stop and think about that. Who to God create for you to save you from your loneliness, loneliness not meaning being alone, but being unaware that you could be understood and accepted and loved and forgiven. That's loneliness.
So God gives Adam with this savior who is now to be his partner and go through life. Wonderful. And then they get the rules. Everything is yours to enjoy. The one thing is this tree over here, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That I reserve. That's my domain. I do not create you to be the judges of the world. I do not create you to be gods. I create you to serve creation, one another and me. Sounds like a deal.
But we know there's a serpent in the story and the serpent is crafty. The serpent stands for all that temptation. Anybody like to be in control? Anybody here think that I've got it right and if only you all agreed with me we'd get along better. Anybody like to judge good from evil? Know what's acceptable? What's not? Who should be allowed in? Who should be kept out? We are all tempted as we're Adam and Eve to take a bite of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And they are caught because the serpent says, you'll be God. You'll be like God. And sometimes we forget that we are partners in grime, that we are made out of the soil, the dirt. Sometimes we forget our humble place and we think we should be the gods that others worship in a door. Oh, this is a story that can so very much be applied to my life. And I would gather yours as well.
Now, when Adam and Eve are addressed by the serpent, the you is a plural. It's not just the woman being deceived. They are both being deceived. The woman's the one who grabs the fruit and shares it. Okay, but they both eat and immediately they know they have disobeyed. They have cut themself off from what God had asked and they feel shame because they see each other in the light. They see each other for the naked truth of their disobedience and their wrongfulness. And when we feel wrong, we feel shame. We even feel we are wrong. And so what do we do? We cover up. We cover up behind anything we can get our hands on, our reputations, our good humor, whatever our lies.
Adam and Eve cover up with fig leaves. Could I make a loin cloth out of a fig leaf? Well, let me tell you fig leaves have a sap to them that burn and irritate skin. So, picture yourself in that loin cloth if you will. When we cover up our sins, we find ourselves eventually, if it doesn't happen immediately, it will over the hours. Our cover ups irritate, bring us pain. Give us no rest. We find ourselves wanting to hide from one another, hide from ourselves. And that's where the story ends in our narrative, lecture today. Adam and Eve are hiding, especially from God who dwells in the garden with them.
Now, I'll tell you the rest of the story. God doesn't let them off the hook. God recognizes where they fail, then pretty much tells them so so that they have to recognize it too after all. It is the naked truth. But God also in banishing them from the garden and giving them the time out takes away the fig leaves and gives them animal skins to keep warm. God comforts them as if it is a sign of that robe of righteousness that will come when Jesus dies on the cross and all of our disobedience, all of our shamefulness, all of our sin is washed clean.
We are partners in grime. We are part of this creation story. We see ourselves in our need for companionship and our desire to be in control and our thanksgiving that God breathed the life into us that gave us these lives we live. But we're also partners in grime as Jesus speaks the words of forgiveness from across as we're washed clean in the waters of baptism as we claim the robe of righteousness which we wear walking into the world today. Partners in grime and love the children of Christ. A story we all know will and one that claims us. Amen.