by Rev. Chris Jorgensen
March 6, 2022
Video of entire service: https://www.facebook.com/hanscomparkchurch/videos/649173929526302
Scripture: Genesis 3:1-21
Long scripture today…I know. Everybody still with us? Everybody still awake?
It’s kind of an exciting one, though, right? Admittedly, I don’t preach on the fall of humanity much here. But friends: Lent. Here we are in the liturgical season of sin, confession, repentance, forgiveness. Maybe like they used to be for me, these can almost be trigger words for you. I know, I know: there is no shortage of preaching and teaching in the world that has made this story bad news instead of good news.
But I am a preacher of the Good News. I promise you it is here.
Let’s look at this scripture.
Here we have an ancient story. It was not written by scientists who were examining the fossil record. (Let’s set that image aside.) This story was written by people who lived with intimate knowledge of the land. They had questions about why it was so hard to live on the land. Why is there so much suffering and struggle? This story was one of their answers. The bible is not a science textbook, so we don’t seek scientific answers in it. The bible invites us to reflect on the nature of God and the relationship of humanity and creation to God.
This story tells us that God and creation (especially humans) are intimately in relationship with one another. We hear those details of God walking in the garden with the humans. And it also tells the story of the kind of thing humans do that separate them from God and can ruin their relationships with each other and all of creation.
We start in the garden. In this story, God has created a perfect garden in which the humans can live. They have everything they need there. There is one rule. One rule. Adam and Eve: you have one job! That rule is: don’t eat the fruit off this one tree. You can have all the fruit off of all the other trees, but not this one tree.
There was one rule. They had one job.
What do the humans do? Of course – they break the rule. They are convinced by a talking snake (again, not science here) that the reason God doesn’t want them to eat that fruit is that it will give them knowledge and power. It would let them be as wise as God. Besides, the fruit looks pretty yummy. It was “a delight to the eyes.” Despite the fact that they had all the other fruit on all the other trees, they wanted the fruit they couldn’t have. They thought it would make them wise like God, and it looked like it tasted good. So in their arrogance and their greed, they ate the forbidden fruit.
I think this might invite us to imagine that original sin, the sort of primary sin of humanity, is grounded in arrogance and greed. There are consequences to that. The writers of Genesis put the words for this reality into Yahweh God’s mouth when He shows up in the garden. He says to the first two people: there are consequences.
Yahweh says,
“cursed is the ground because of you;
in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;”
Arrogance and greed upset God’s creation. They upset the divine order of things. Cursed is the ground because of you. God created so that all living beings would have enough. Human arrogance and greed destroyed that order. People took things that did not belong to them, they wanted power to wield over each other, they did not share with their neighbor, they created human systems full of brokenness and waste, they oppressed and killed each other for land and resources. From the beginning of history right down to global warming to the invasion of Ukraine.
Arrogance and greed destroy God’s good creation.
It is sin. In her book A Time to Grow, Rev. Kara Eidson defines sin as “anything that draws us away from God…Sin is anything that disrupts our inclination to stay in relationship with God and God’s creation” (p. 19).
Eidson goes on in her book to describe the food systems humans have developed that are harming creation. She talks about how we ship our food sometimes halfway across the globe in order to eat fruit out of season. That is a problem and a waste of energy. We perhaps should abstain from strawberries in January.
But it’s not simple. The brokenness of the world has made our problems very complex.
I think about our culturally appropriate food pantry. Arrogance and greed have resulted in the displacement of so many people because of war and poverty and exploitation. People have been forced to leave their home countries and have come here in hopes of a better life.
People have been displaced from the kinds of food they eat. So let’s take just one: pigeon peas. Pigeon peas are a major staple for Indian and Latin American cultures. We are going to have them in our culturally appropriate food pantry. The pigeon peas we will distribute come from India or Africa. Some, but not many, are grown in the United States – south of here. But most of them are imported. So that means they have been shipped and required fossil fuel to move them around the globe. Yet it is the food that is culturally appropriate to share with folks. This reminds us that the need for diverse food is not as simple as greedy Americans just wanting strawberries in winter.
The whole food system, and the whole world is filled with so much brokenness – such complex suffering because of human arrogance and greed.
It can be overwhelming to think about.
Eidson helps us try to step forward by quoting the Rabbi Rami Shapiro who wrote: “Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly now, love mercy now, walk humbly now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.”
I want us to go back to the story of the first people in the garden. God’s role in the story does not end with the declaration of suffering for the humans and the earth.
You know, there are some verses in scripture that take my breath away every time I read them. Genesis 3:21 is one of them. “And the Lord God made garments of skins for the man and for his wife, and clothed them.”
Here are these poor humans: Adam and Eve. They just messed up royally. They broke the one rule. They succumbed to human arrogance and greed, and their whole world is crashing down around them. They are about to get kicked out of the garden. Now they are going to have to struggle against the brokenness of the world. Now they are going to suffer in childbirth and struggle to protect and feed their children. These were the natural consequences of their disobedience.
And as God steps aside to usher them out of the garden into the broken world, God pauses. Like a Mother, She can’t let her children go out into the world without some hope and some protection. So she clothes them. She offers them a bit of protection, the protection she can, given the enormity of the brokenness of the world. It’s going to be hard, but God is going to be with them in the work of redeeming the mess they have made.
In our Christian tradition, Jesus is often imagined as the new Adam. We have this theology that says, in Christ, the brokenness of original sin is repaired. The gap between humans and God is closed. I do believe that that Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection made a way for God’s divine forgiveness to be made known to us. We are forgiven. We are forgiven every time we fall down and in every moment. That forgiveness frees us to respond to the love of God. As Christians, we believe we are forgiven and freed from arrogance and greed because of Jesus.
And yet, as we celebrate our personal redemption and liberation, we can’t forget our role in the redemption and liberation of the world, our role in restoring creation, our role in welcoming God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.
The good news, my friends, is not just that we are forgiven and personally reconciled to God in Jesus. The good news is also that we are freed to be like God in the way we participate in the restoration of the world.
In Christ, we are freed to be like our Mothering Seamstress God. We are freed and full of God’s Holy Spirit to be gentle and compassionate and creative repairers of the breach.
Yes, we are distributing food shipped in from all over the world for the All People’s Pantry. But we are taking small, creative steps to produce food with almost-zero carbon footprint. In our church garden this year, we will grow vegetables our New American neighbors enjoy. We will grow okra and jalapeño and eggplant rather than import them from Mexico. We will grow tomatoes that everybody will eat, and we will be fed by food that has never exploited one migrant worker or burned one gallon of gasoline.
So if you volunteer to help with the garden this year, you are living into the image of God: a gentle and compassionate and creative repairer of the breach.
I know that might not seem a lot given the enormity of the world’s grief. But there are billions of people in the world who may be freed to make billions of compassionate and creative decisions in every moment. There are billions of moments for you to imagine more things you can do.
This morning, we will start with this. We will take communion. It’s a chance in this one moment to turn back to God: God who offered the first people redemption and help in lovingly crafted clothing, God who dressed them like the beloved children they are. That same God offers us (also beloved children) redemption and help and God’s very presence today. In that tiny bread and sip of juice, there is a mysterious gift of forgiveness and grace and power to live in God’s love.
May we receive that gift today and turn the tide toward wholeness.
May it be so.
Amen
Reflection Questions
1) What is your experience of hearing the story of the fall of humanity (Adam and Eve eating the forbidden fruit in the Garden)? Does it seem more like “bad news” or “good news” to you? Why?
2) What do you make of this image of God as a Mothering Seamstress? What image or images of God are most meaningful to you?
3) What are some ways you can be a “creative repairer of the breach”? (For example, what is one way that you could eat food that is grown locally rather than shipped from far away? Given the enormity of the suffering and chaos in Ukraine, what is one way you can help to support the Ukrainian people or promote peace in the world more generally? What are other small ways you can help the world move from brokenness to wholeness?)