Trinity 1

Sermon preached by Sarah West, ordinand at Westcott House

 “They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the Garden at the time of the evening breeze”

I wonder what the sound of God walking in the Garden sounds like? Did they hear his sandals on the path? Or the sound of twigs breaking? Was God bare footed? Does God even have feet?

 God walking in the garden that he had created is intentionally a very human image. It helps us relate to the story and feel an intimacy with God. I imagine God at the time of the cooling evening breeze taking some respite from the heat of the day and seeking a relaxing pre-dinner stroll around the garden. I imagine God enjoying his creation with a gin and tonic in hand looking forward to a nice conversation with the people to whom he had given life.  This illustration conveys something of the purpose of God in creating humankind and his desire for us to share this life with him. 

 The true myth of Adam, and Eve and the Serpent, reveals a deep truth about humanity, about our desires, about what we value, and about God. It illustrates how humanity responds to God – to the gift of life, and love, and to the gift of the vocation to which Adam is called - to tend the Garden; to share in the work of God.

Adam is given the freedom of the garden and permission to eat of nearly every tree. There was just one prohibition, one boundary - He was not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil for, God says, on the day that he eats of that tree he will die.

 We join the story today when Adam and Eve are learning the consequences of disobeying God’s commandment. They have eaten from the tree of knowledge. The outcome may not have been what they expected, but they are now very aware that they are naked – as the Serpent had promised, they had not died (immediately anyhow), and their eyes had been opened. As with all the animals, they had always been naked before God, and they ‘were not ashamed’. However, now everything had changed.

 The man and his wife hide themselves from God among the trees of the Garden, but God, who must already know what they have done, seeks them and calls out: Where are you?

 The man says to God ‘I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself’.

The sound of God in the garden, which should have been a sound of joy, is now one of fear. The man is afraid of God seeing him naked – afraid of the one who gave him life in the first place. This is not how it was supposed to be.

Adam seems to forget his partner, Eve, at this point and his response to God is full of I’s – I was afraid, I was naked, I hid… It seems it is every man for himself. By not using the plural ‘we’ - he distances himself from his wife.

 God asked ‘Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?’. The pleasant conversation in the cool evening breeze and the gin and tonic forgotten, the couple are now on trial and God is the judge.

 Adam says ‘The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree and I ate’

Adam does not accept responsibility for his actions, and in his response, he indirectly blames God saying ‘the woman you gave me’ and then blames it all on Eve; giving Women a legacy that is still felt today.

It brings into question the argument that Adam, as he was created first, has authority over Eve who was created as his helper. If Adam has the authority, then surely it comes with some responsibility for his helper’s actions… Equally, if Eve was so easily deceived due to her being the weaker sex, then what of Adam? Adam was not tricked by the serpent, he knew exactly what he was doing when he ate the forbidden fruit, but he did it anyway.

God turns to the woman asking why she has done such a thing and she replies with candid honesty: ‘the serpent tricked me, and I ate’.

God could have created beings with no capacity for disobeying his commands, but he did not. He created us with the ability to make decisions even if those decisions might lead us to disobey. We have to choose whose voice to listen to - God’s or someone else’s?

The woman decides to listen to the serpent, she is drawn in as the serpent encourages the first humans to disobey God, to think that they could be like God - knowing Good and Evil; to think that they could do without God.

Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann says that doubting God, rejecting his care, and seeking to secure our own well-being lead to anxiety and fear. The serpent seduces mankind into believing that there are securities apart from the reality of God, but this ’failure to trust God with our lives’ proves to be ‘death’. Freedom does not come from rejecting God; the freedom is in living within God’s boundaries - in trusting in him.

 God’s judgement is to curse the serpent for leading them astray and to evict humanity from the garden of Eden to live lives of toil and hardship. Humanity had fallen short of the intimate image of God walking in the garden seeking the humans he had created to share it with him. Once sin had entered into things, the relationship for which they were created was damaged and had to change.

However, God did not abandon them in their sin, for ‘the Lord God made garments of skins for the man and for his wife, and clothed them’ (Gen 3:21). God, in a very intimate and parental act, clothes them, and cares for them and ensures they have what they need before evicting them from the Garden and sending them out into the world.

 This tale is about humanity, not just humanity then, but humanity now. It does not take very much imagination to see ourselves in Adam and Eve. The serpent could be anything that leads us to turn away from God, that plants the seeds of temptation, that leads us to reject God’s provision of what is good and not good, to listen to those things or people that we allow to have power over us - the idols of this life, be they money, success, autonomy, other people. Things that move us further away from what we were intended to be and that damage our relationship with God. It is sometimes easy in our society to forget that it is all from God. We forget that we love because God first loved us, we forget that God calls each of us to share in his purpose; to share in God’s work; to help bring forth God’s vision for the world.

 The story illustrates how humanity responds to God. God gives us everything and we push boundaries and break the trust of relationship and reject God’s love by trying to do without God. But, God’s response is to seek us out and call: Where are you?

Despite us sharing in the fall of all humanity starting with Adam and Eve, God gave everything to come and find us; to restore our intimate relationship with him.

God sent Jesus, his only son to show us that we are loved and known, and that we can respond ‘Here I am. In all my fear and nakedness; in my brokenness and sin, here I am!’