Creation And Fall Transcript

We begin that journey again through the scriptures that we've been doing the last couple of years where we work our way from Genesis to Revelation, from Genesis to the early church, and identify different parts along the way that maybe we wouldn't have covered before or are looking at it in a different way. And our prayer is that we, as we go through this journey over the year, we do so, we recognize threads of stories that we may not have heard before, may not have recognized that are there, because we don't encounter the scripture of God in its entirety. We get used to reading a piece here and a piece there and a piece here, and we fail to see how the narrative of God's redemptive arc is found through the whole thing. We come back to the garden. We come back to the garden of Eden.

We come back to the time when there was but dirt on the earth and it was dry. We find from the scripture why it is dry. We see it is dry because there was no vegetation. Well, why isn't there vegetation? Because it had not rained. Well, why hadn't it rained? Because there was no garden or there was, sorry, there was no one to till the garden. The earth was in the state that it was in because God had not yet created a helper to work beside God to accomplish what God desired for the earth to be.

So we see God creating Adamah, this being, and we eventually learn that this being is separated into male and female. And they are given free reign and access to a garden. Many of you know the story, but I'll get to where maybe we need to look at it a different way. They're given free access to this garden. They can eat and drink. They can eat of any tree but two. And these two were somewhere in the center of the garden, the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Now, while they walked in this garden, we are told that they talk with God. They have a deep relationship with God. We imagine and we sing some of our hymns where Adam and Eve are walking through the garden, conversing with God in a closeness that most of us would long for. That we would dream of the ability to walk beside God and hear God's voice audibly and comfortingly and to be able to call out to God and say, walk beside me for I need you here. But unfortunately, this state was not to have lasted.

We talk about the first sin and much ink has been spilled to blame Eve for this, but Adam is right there with her. But I would argue, and I want you to think about this in a different way, that the first sin wasn't the eating of the apple. It was the fruit of the first sin, so to speak. For Eve and Adam beside her are talking with the serpent and they're talking about what God has said. They're trying to discern, they're trying to argue with one another, what did God say and what did God mean?

And the woman says, we cannot eat of the fruit nor can we touch it. Or we will surely die. And the serpent's saying, wait, did God really say that you would surely die? Or did God say something else? And they're going back and forth. And these two people that could call up to God and have walked beside God in the garden could have at any point said, let's ask him ourselves. Let's ask God ourselves what God meant. And what did God say? But instead, they argued with the serpent.

I would argue that this was the first breaking, the first sin in the garden, where they no longer relied on God, their relationship with God. They never reached out to God to say, what shall we do? But instead argued and then decided for themselves and then ate the fruit. Now they did not die right away, but they became aware. They became aware of their state. They became aware of their nakedness. They became aware that they had broken that relationship with God by not only doubting what God wanted them to do, but also in refusing to ask.

They had broken their reliance on God and they were ashamed. And so when God comes back for those daily strolls, when God comes looking for them, God is calling out for them, where are you? I cannot find you. find you. And finally they come out and say, we are here. We were hiding from you because we were naked and afraid. We were ashamed. God says, how would you know this? And they had to admit that they ate of the

fruit. We talk about that first sin, or Christianity has often talked about that first sin as introducing some sort of sin or sickness in the soul that cannot be erased on its own. And in some ways that is true, but what the implications of that sin are is a breaking of relationship. A breaking of healthy relationship between the man and the woman, between the humanity and creation, and humanity and God. These broken relationships, we might not be able to identify with some sort of sickness of the soul that gets passed down, but we can relate to the brokenness, this breaking of the ordering of creation.

Like I said, this passage has been used to criticize women and tell them that they are less than, that they should not be in charge, that they are too emotional to be in charge, they are too easily manipulated to be in charge. This is a result of that broken relationship. It transforms what once was a partnership between Adam and Eve. It transforms what once was a companionship of equals into a hierarchy that establishes man before woman.

We see between brothers, relationships, Adam, Cain, and Abel, that first sibling rivalry that did not end well, that we can relate to even today. There's a man named George who ran a business with his brother. They had to make a decision on which direction their business would grow. And this decision was such that it really didn't work out. It didn't work out. It didn't work out. It really would make an impact. It really was a deciding point. Would they go this direction and pursue business in that way? Or would they pivot

and go another way? And they each thought themselves to be correct. They each knew that in their minds and in their wisdom that they had the right idea, that the other one was completely wrong. And they argued and they fought. And finally, the relationship broke. They stopped talking to each other. One sold his half of the business. Let the other one do whatever they wanted. And they refused to speak to each other again. The relationship had been broken because they were relying on their own guidance, relying on their own wisdom instead

of something more. This brokenness with creation, the way we use resources and misuse resources, the way we see our fellow man, the way we see the immigrants in our midst, the way we mock them and revile them, make them scapegoats for our fear, the way we look at God's beautiful creation, that we were created to tend and to till, to partner with God, and we use it for our own purposes, bringing scars to the land and with it pain and suffering. We see over and over again this brokenness of relationship, this brokenness of living that touches every single aspect

of our lives. This is sin. This is, as we say, an example or a ramification of that first sin. Or that first sin is an explanation for why the world is the way it is. but there is good news. There is good news that this brokenness is not the way that things have to be. This brokenness is not the way that the world was created and not the way that we have been left to our own devices and our own destruction. For we serve a God who saw that initial brokenness and then cared for Adam and Eve by giving them clothes, by giving them protection, and by still being with them and their families and their descendants

forever. We do not serve a God that created all things and left the garden and refused to walk with his people. We do not serve a God who saw his creation suffering and say, well, I tried and I'm done and you all can do whatever you're going to do. We do not serve a God that we will see over these next few years. We do not serve a God that we will see over these next few years. We do not serve a God that we will see over these next few weeks and months, who has made promise and promise and promise with God's creation and say, I will be with you. I will, if you follow me, I will care for you. You can trust me. I will lead you out of bondage

if you trust me and you will be in a promised land and just follow me. And every single time, like we see in the garden now, God's beloved creation initially saying, sure, we'll follow you. Sure, we'll trust you. Sure, we'll let you lead us. But then at some point along the way, something happens that we break our promises. We break our commitments. We abandon our commitments and we abandon God and turn away for something that is fleeting and will disappear. And what we see is It's a God that says, I refuse to accept this. I refuse to allow you to choose death over and over

again. A God that didn't say, all right, I am done with you. No more. And we believe that the fullest expression of God's calling us back to God's self is Jesus Christ. In Christ, we see God's triumphant victory over the death. Introduced in the garden. In Christ, we see humanity and divinity combined into fullness of life in a personal being. God incarnate, incarnate in the flesh, walking beside his disciples and those that would follow him. Calling out to women to walk beside him. Women who would be

at the tomb first and share the good news of the resurrection first. One who would show us that through creation, we can see God's handiwork, whether it's a small mustard seed, a grain of wheat, flowers in the valley, or anything in between. And who invites us from mountaintops and valleys to work beside him. In the passage that we read from the Gospel of Mark, we see Jesus reestablishing human relationships. In new ways, no doubt, than what they

were used to. But reestablishing where right relationship can be. He says, look at all of these people that are here. This is my mother. These are my brothers. The ones who do the will of the father are my family. It's that restoration of that relationship that was in the garden that if Eve and Adam had relied on and said, wait a minute, we've got this wrong. Let's ask the source. Because he walks with

us. Let's see what God wills us to do. What God wants us to do. And he invites us into that kind of living in this world. That kind of seeing others in this world. That tells us as he's dividing the sheep and the goats at the end. Looks at one group of people and said, because you gave water to the thirsty. Because you gave water to the thirsty. Because you gave water to the thirsty. Because you gave food

to the hungry. Because you visited the sick and those in prison. Because you have done these things. You did them for me and I welcome you. And he turns to the other group and says, because you did not do these things. Because you did not welcome me when I was a stranger. Because you did not feed me when I was hungry. Because you did not visit me when I was sick. And they say, wait a minute, Jesus. When were you ever among the sick, the hungry, those in prison? And when did you ever reject you? And again, Jesus says, because you did not do it unto the least of these,

you did not do it to me. Both groups called him Lord in that passage. And it's Matthew 25 if you want to read it for yourselves sometime. Jesus is looking for us through his work, through the power and presence of the spirit and the redeeming work of the spirit in our lives to rebuild what has been broken. To restore what has been destroyed. To restore what has been broken. To restore what has been destroyed. To return a balance to the relationships that are off kilter. And to

walk beside him and to work with him, tilling the garden and planting the seeds of the kingdom in our midst. Restoring the very thing that we had been called to and created for as expressed in this passage. The good thing or the bad, depending on who you ask, is this is an invitation. Jesus invites us and leaves us with the free will and the choice to say yes or no. At every given option, we can say yes or no.

At every step along the way, when following Christ, we can say yes to what Christ wants us to do. Or say no, we're not ready. No, I don't like it. Or go back to the garden and say, did God really mean that? We are still in the midst of a crisis. We are still in the midst of a crisis. We are still in the midst of a crisis. We are still having these debates today in the

church. We are still having these debates today across Christendom about what did Jesus mean? What did God say? How do we live it out? And too often, we do what Adam and Eve did and try to decide for ourselves instead of going to God and saying, by your spirit, show us the answer. This week, with what has been said, said about immigrants in Ohio. The clearest example I've seen online of this type of conversation is if you propose three little words, you get a whole blow up. Love thy

neighbor. And we end up arguing over who's my neighbor? How do we love our neighbor? Who is excluded from who our neighbor is? How do we love? What constitutes love? And in none of those conversations is there a call to go to God and say, what do you mean? And how do I do this? Almost every response is based on our understanding, our wisdom, and our attempts to explain it. And we end up as broken. Relationships end up as destroyed. Our care of the other and of creation around us is distorted. And we are in the garden all over again. And those moments after the fruit was eaten. And again, God does not still say, I am done with

you. Get away from me. And if that doesn't show a patience, a mercy, a love that spans time, space, politics, ideology, our own sin and follies, if that does not demonstrate God's abiding love for us, don't know what else will. That God does not simply say, I am done with you. And so we ought to seek reconciliation in our personal lives. If you have those relationships with a sibling, with a parent, with a friend or a neighbor that you have written off and said, I am done with you, imagine the restoration of relationship that could happen. But it might take you to come with humility, an openness of the spirit, forgiveness and healing. Imagine the transformation that could happen if God's people in the church would stand up uniformly and say, nowhere in scripture is there a command that

when we see the hungry or the alien, whether they are here legally or not, whatever your, your opinion on that is, nowhere in scripture, I have read it from cover to cover, does it say, when I was hungry, you mocked me and ridiculed me. says, when I was hungry, you fed me. Christ has restored those relationships, has planted the seeds in God's kingdom that can take root in our hearts by the power of the Holy Spirit. I think that's why Jesus says in the passage, you read, if you blaspheme against the Holy Spirit, it's the unforgivable sin, because it is this very spirit at work within us that brings forgiveness. And if we reject that spirit, what

hope do we have? But in Christ, relationships can, that have been broken by sin can be restored. Our relationship with community, our relationship with creation, our relationship with one another can all be reconciled, mended, and brought back. We are brought to wholeness. May we seek out that reconciliation.

May we do our part to live out God's call. May we seek God's guidance when interpretive differences arise, when political differences arise.

May we seek to grow more in love with Christ each day so that we might become more like him in how we live and how we love. Amen.