Put yourself in Adam & Eve’s shoes for a moment…
God places you in the produce section of the grocery store, and says, “Today there are 436 varieties of produce available, but I don’t want you to eat the persimmons.” How hard could it be? There’s 435 other delicious and varied items to satisfy your desires.
Lemons, figs, olives, dates, mangoes, pomegranates, apricots, pluots, grapefruits…
You could eat a different fruit every day of the year, and still not get through them all. Who needs persimmons, anyway?
God places you in the middle of the Library of Congress, and says, “You can read any book in the building, but keep away from the book about the scientific analysis of moon rocks.” How hard could it be? You didn’t even know there was such a thing as the scientific analysis of moon rocks.
In the face of such a vast selection of alternatives, how could Adam and Eve get caught
with a mouthful of forbidden fruit?
We hear this familiar story, and there’s a part of us that wants to roll our eyes and say, “Duh! How dense can you two be? You’re given one rule, it seems pretty straightforward, and yet you can’t get it right!”
When else in life are you given just one rule? The next time that God gives rules to the Israelites, the list is up to ten.
Why couldn’t we live in a world with just one rule?
If only it were that simple… See the snake, say “No!” If only it were that simple.
We would be able to see the snake, identify the danger, and successfully avoid it.
We know it’s a lot more complicated than that in the real world.
In our day and age, we don’t always know the nature of the evil that we face. We live in a world where evil hides among the good, terrorists passing themselves off as innocent bystanders, or bombs strapped to children. Even on our side of the world, we are faced with situations where we want to do good, but it isn’t always clear what the best thing to do would be. God’s will isn’t always crystal clear in every situation.
One example: WWII – A battleship was responding to the distress signal of a sinking ship. When they arrived on the site, they found a raft full of survivors, with a German sub hiding below. If you’re the captain, what do you do? Do you attempt to rescue the life raft, leaving your vessel vulnerable to attack, or do you drop depth charges to sink the enemy sub, but kill those in the life raft at the same time?
Sometimes the trouble is that the temptation doesn’t come to us all at once. Rather, it comes in smaller, less-noticeable segments.
We try to prove our self-worth by throwing ourselves more and more into our work.
One drink here and there leads to a few drinks on a more regular basis, which leads to not being able to get through the day without a drink. The alcoholic doesn’t just sit down one day and decide to ruin their life. Instead, life situations slowly compound, and the effect of “just one drink” become less and less.
The drugs only work to further convince the addict that she is a helpless victim of the happenstance of life.
Sin isn’t always as simple as “God told me not to eat the forbidden fruit, but I did it anyway.”
Sin is not about a broken rule, but a broken relationship.
When Adam & Eve ate of the fruit, they were in essence telling God, “I have no need of you. I know what’s best for me! I am God of my own life.” They weren’t satisfied with all that God had given them. They wanted to be gods.
That was the tempter’s angle. “The fruit will make you wise. The fruit will put you on the same plane as God. The fruit will put you in control.”
The serpent wanted to force a wedge into the humans’ relationship with God. If they felt they knew better than God, then they wouldn’t look to God to provide for their needs.
The temptation of Adam and Eve is our temptation as well.
How often do we live our lives as though God does not exist?
How often do we live as though we can take care of ourselves, ignoring God’s wiser purpose for our lives?
Instead of listening to advice that someone else may give us, we get defensive and entrench ourselves further in to potentially destructive behaviors.
Instead of “honoring our father and mother,” how often do children disrespect their parents, and partake in unhealthy behavior, despite their parents’ advice?
How often do we strive after what I want for me, instead of what God wants for me?
Or, how often do we claim to follow God, but then try to customize God to suit our wants and desires.
“I want God to love me, but I don’t want God trying to tell me how to live my life.”
“God should forgive my sins, but don’t talk to be about forgiving Joe over there.”
“God is supposed to give me all that I want and need, but don’t talk to me about giving to the church. That’s different.”
It’s so easy for us to point the finger at Adam and Eve, and to say that they’re to blame for all the problems in the world. “If they didn’t eat the apple, we wouldn’t be in this mess…”
I began this sermon with an invitation: Put yourself in Adam & Eve’s shoes…
(Yes, I know, shoes hadn’t been invented yet…)
If Adam & Eve didn’t rebel against God, someone throughout the ages certainly would have.
And if none of you would have, I know I certainly would have blown it. So you can blame all your sin on me! Just kidding.
Paul reminds us in Romans 3, “There is now no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…” (Romans 3:22-3) There is no one who can completely live up to God’s desire for our lives. As some point, we all turn away from letting God be God, and see ourselves as the ultimate authority for our lives.
None of us is perfect. We all have failed. We have all sinned. Whether we’ve broken one of God’s laws or all of them, we all stand before God deserving punishment. We are all in need of a Savior.
But thanks be to God, that’s exactly what we have: a Savior.
God did not abandon Adam & Eve in their disobedience, and God does not abandon us
Jesus Christ came to earth to walk with us, to live the perfect life that we are not able to live, to witness to God’s love and mercy, and ultimately to suffer, die, and rise again, so that we might never be separated from God our Creator.
During our Lenten journey to Calvary’s cross, we will witness the depth of God’s self-sacrificing love for us, the lengths to which our God goes to bring us back into the fold.
This is God’s gift to us, and this is our message to share with the world: That God’s love for us is greater than anything that we can do to push God away. Even when we live as thought God does not exist, our God does not live as though we do not exist. Our God is always there for us, loving us, providing for us, protecting us, waiting for us to turn and trust in God’s wise guiding in our lives.
• Join us on this Lenten journey of love, and invite someone else to walk with you, to hear again, or for the first time, that sweet message of love and grace: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” (John 3:16-17)
And as we seek to be about God’s work in this place and time, “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will keep our hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:7) Amen.
