Sermon for SMHP, Year A, Lent 1, March 5, 2017
Genesis
2:15-17, 3:1-7
15The Lord God took the man and put him in the
garden of Eden to till it and keep it. 16And the Lord God commanded
the man, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; 17but of
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day
that you eat of it you shall die.”
Now the serpent was more crafty than
any other wild animal that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did
God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?” 2The
woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden;
3but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is
in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.’“ 4But
the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die; 5for God knows
that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God,
knowing good and evil.”
6So when the woman saw that the tree was good
for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be
desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some
to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. 7Then the eyes of both
were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves
together and made loincloths for themselves.
Lent is a time for
renewal. So we’re starting at the beginning.
Genesis, Chapter 2. So almost the
beginning. In fact, I think it would be
helpful to go back a chapter to the very beginning.
A reading from Genesis,
the first chapter:
In the beginning when God created the
heavens and the earth, 2the earth was a formless void and darkness
covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. 3Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there
was light. 4And God saw that the light was good; and God
separated the light from the darkness. 5God called the light Day, and the darkness he
called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.
The
story of creation is a story of balance.
A story of harmony.
Light. Dark.
Day. Night. Evening.
Morning.
As
the story goes on, each new day is filled with elements that balance one
another: sky and earth, land and water,
creeping things and flying things.
UNTIL
the sixth day, when God created human beings in God’s image. In the first account of creation—the one in
Genesis One—God makes human beings and gives them dominion over the earth.
Now,
at first, everything seemed okay. In
fact, it was going so well that on the seventh day…
…God
rested. Which is good, because right
after that, all hell broke loose.
Literally.
There
was this moment of balance. I’m sure
you’ve experienced it. That moment when
everything is in harmony. Everything is
flowin’ and groovin’.
And
then it’s not.
God
made the humans—either all at once or the man first and then a helpmate for the
man, depending on which account of creation you are reading and that’s why we
are not biblical literalists because you can only be a literalist
through Genesis, Chapter One, since Chapter Two offers a different account.
And
also because literalism is a terrible lens for a document of faith.
But
I digress.
Genesis. Chapter Two.
God made the humans and gave them the garden and responsibility and
dominion over every living thing and God asked just one simple thing: “Don’t eat that.”
Enter
the serpent. Who is the serpent,
according to tradition?
The
devil. Which isn’t what the story says
but is more or less accurate, since the devil is more of a presence than a
little red cartoon man with a pitchfork.
So
the serpent came and convinced the humans to eat of the tree of the knowledge
of good and evil and they did…
…and
so much for balance. Harmony. It all went away.
It
went away because the real balance wasn’t between the man and the woman or
between the humans and the rest of creation…
…the
real balance was between the humans and…?
God.
God
ordered creation and created harmony among all living things. And then God created humans, in God’s image, and God made the first
covenant with the humans, in order that we would live in harmony with God. God gave the humans everything, and in return,
the humans agreed not to eat of the fruit of one tree.
Should
have been a pretty easy covenant for the humans to keep, shouldn’t it?
You
get everything. Except this one
thing.
One thing!
And we couldn’t do
it. Couldn’t not eat the one thing.
That
was just the beginning, wasn’t it? Just
the beginning of human beings looking at the world which God created with such
love and knowing that we have the responsibility to care for that world and
deciding that we want to know more than God. We want to take care of
ourselves. Make our own decisions.
How
are we doing? How’s our balance right
now as a species? How’s our balance with
all of the other species?
Not
so good. God’s beautiful creation is
taking a beating. And we are generally
looking the other way.
The
polar ice caps are melting faster than the folks who study climate change
predicted. This will surely be the
warmest year on record, topping last year, which beat out the year before.
All
because we have decided that we know more than God. And science.
Clearly
we are out of balance with creation.
How’s
our balance with one another? Not so
good, is it?
God
created this world and called it good.
Created it so that all creatures would live in harmony with one
another. Gave the humans all that we
could possibly want. Including more free
will than is good for us. And almost
immediately, we exercised our free will to do the one thing God said not to do.
The fancy word for that is “concupiscence.” The word we all know is “sin.”
During
the season of Lent, we are invited to think about our “concupiscence”—all of
the ways in which we have turned away from God’s created order and chased after
our desires to the detriment of our neighbors.
During
this Lenten season, we will be
focusing specifically on justice.
What
does justice look like? What’s the
symbol of justice?
Balance. This Lent, I want to invite you to consider
balance, in your own life and in your relationship with the world. What’s in balance? What needs work?
How
are we out of balance with our world?
How is our world out of balance?
We
will be exploring these themes as we talk about justice this Lent.
God
created a beautiful world and called it good.
And it is good. Let us also live
into that goodness.
