June 9, 2023. Texts: Genesis 3:8-15; 2 Corinthians 4:13 – 5:1; Mark 3:20-35.
The snake had always been in the garden. That’s important to know. It was not some alien being that made its way in to wreak havoc after the garden had been populated.
Not only that, but it’s possible that the serpent had already nibbled on the fruit of that particular tree before engaging the woman of the garden in a lively conversation about the fruit’s desirable qualities. Notably, ancient people revered two trees – one tree was the source of life unending. This was the Tree of Life. The other tree, was the source of wisdom – the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
Was the serpent up to no good with the fruits of the tree, wanting to have a co-conspirator in misbehavior? To be fair perhaps the serpent just wanted to have someone to converse with on intellectual matters. (Which does lead to the observation that the serpent chose the woman rather than the man.)
When God confronted the humans about their sudden shyness at being seen by their creator, they denied that there was a problem. But God knew that was not the truth for the simple reason that they had never hidden before, since in their created innocence they had nothing to hide. Now they apparently did.
The next thing they tried was blaming. The man said the woman gave him the fruit, and inferred that she had not told him it was from the forbidden tree. The woman said that she had been led astray by the serpent. But God was not fooled.
In the end, both humans and serpent paid a price. Each lost the gift of dwelling in the garden’s rich provision, leading to a life of work and struggle. Not to mention the loss of a natural trusting relationship between God and themselves. And eternal enmity between snakes and people.
The serpent was now to be a greater danger than any other animal, wild or domesticated. It came to be associated with deception and untrustworthiness. It was a short step to move the serpent from a fellow creature asking an unfortunate question, to a representation of natural evil.
This leads to speculation about how evil got into the Garden. And the problem of God’s goodness, if the serpent was natural to the garden. And so the blaming persists. As does the problem of sin and evil – always the deeds of someone else, of course. Never us!
What happens on the other side of lost innocence is always a painful matter. Never to live in God’s garden again means a certain kind of hunger and homelessness of the spirit. In a manner of speaking, we are all walking on the sidewalks of life pushing our earthly possessions in rusty shopping carts with broken wheels.
Arguably, God sent Jesus to fix the wheels on our carts, bring us food and fresh clothes, and invite us to move into his house. Now, this is not the restored garden, mind you. It’s not a cherished family home where your family has always lived.
The house of Jesus is more of a halfway house with a supportive community. We live here for the present. We anticipate the day when we move into the lasting home God has furnished for us.
Oh, there are people who do not like to have Jesus’s halfway house in their neighborhood. They always have some kind of complaint. Constant deliveries of bread and wine, endless parties for newcomers, offering spiritual treatment for ill and injured people. All flaunting the neighborhood covenant. Jesus heard about something most every day.
Oh, the house of Jesus is a threat, some say. Jesus permits anyone to enter and live in his house. There’s a spirit about that place they just don’t like. They whisper that it is evil. Snakes in the garden. Jesus might be Satan himself! It’s terrible how they have Pride in that neighborhood!
It got so bad that one day even Jesus’s own family tried to intervene. They stood outside the house where he was, saying, he’s not evil – just a little out of his mind. Come Jesus, they said, we’ll take you home. You need a rest. You’ve been working too hard, walking too far, not eating properly. It seemed good to them, but they were misunderstanding Jesus and opposing him.
Making what is good seem bad. Making what is bad seem good. This is one very effective way that sin grows into evil. It is what the serpent whispered to the woman one day. It is what certain religious scholars were saying about God’s own Son.
When we no longer are able to sort out a good spirit from a destructive one, we are in peril.
To mischaracterize good and bad for our own purposes opposes and demonizes God’s Spirit. In particular, denying that God’s Spirit is good, leads to alienation in all kinds of ways. .
And there we remain, outside and apart. How long? Eternally is the word. Which does not mean forever and ever without end. It means the age-long. We might say, for the time being.
It’s not that God prohibits us. It is we who are unwilling to enter the house of Jesus when we cannot see God‘s good in it. We lock ourselves out of the house where God’s loving grace abounds. All the while God waits for us to find the key again. However long it takes.
The key to the door is faith. It is always in our hands. Look at how beautiful it is. How good. Amen.