Adam and Eve: The PROBLEM

Text: Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7
Theme: “Adam and Eve: The PROBLEM”
1st Sunday in Lent
March 13, 2011
First Presbyterian Church
Denton, Texas
Rev. Paul R. Dunklau

In the Name of Jesus

15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. 16 And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”
Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”
4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

This morning I begin a series of seasonal messages that I’m calling A Very Personal Lent. My rationale for the title is as follows: Among the many temptations we are faced with concerning believing in God is to think of it all in only abstract terms. But how often do we deal in abstractions? Think about it. We don’t deal with them very often. Rather, we are faced with concrete, gritty, messy, energizing, at times demoralizing, occasionally triumphant realities that are very real, and we are the very real people who face them every day. A healthy dose of the concrete, therefore, is in order. And if it is to be concrete and substantive and something, as they say, that we can sink our teeth into, we cannot avoid the personal. So I propose to survey with you some very personal stories of persons in the Bible as they related to God, their own lives, and the events swirling around them. We will consider Adam and Eve, our ancient parents. We’ll take a look at Abraham and Sarah next Sunday. Turning to the New Testament, we’ll then pay a visit to the Samaritan woman at the well, to a man born blind, and to a very close personal friend of Jesus named Lazarus. My prayer is that the Holy Spirit will wash away the abstractions and enable our faith and life to be refreshed and energized.

As we all know, there are good habits and bad habits. A routine I’ve begun recently – that of working out at a gym – is hopefully becoming a good habit. The idea is to lower the blood pressure, lower the high cholesterol, drop twenty pounds of bad fat, and add at least ten pounds of lean muscle mass. First off are the stretching exercises. Next up are the weight machines with special attention paid to biceps, triceps, and pecs. Then it’s off to the stationary bike to get ten minutes or so of cardio in before shooting some hoops, swimming some laps, sitting in the sauna and then showering up.

By the way, there are high-definition televisions to watch in these fitness centers. The one in front of my favorite exercise bike features the Entertainment Television channel. After last week, I might have to pick a new bike. I listen to my own music on headphones, so I don’t listen to the TV audio. But they do have closed-captioning. This past Thursday, while pedaling away on the bike, I noticed that Entertainment Television must have been running a feature on Charlie Sheen. Every time I look up, I see Charlie Sheen – sitcom clips of Charlie Sheen, Charlie Sheen with or without a cap on, Charlie Sheen talking to a reporter, Charlie Sheen smoking a cigarette while dripping verbal profundities. With his much-publicized legal hassles and battle with addiction, one pundit has described the man as a “narcissistic train wreck.” E TV, apparently, is on hand to chronicle it all for an entertainment-obsessed culture. Never mind earthquakes, tsunamis, American soldiers fighting and dying in other lands, or debates involving teacher unions and collective bargaining. We do love our distractions, and there’s nothing like a good old-fashioned narcissistic train wreck from time to time.

The erratic behavior of a highly paid actor and the subsequent media attention to the same, I surmised as I pedaled on the bike, are only symptomatic of the deeper problem which is, in fact, the deepest problem of them all.

As the perspiration dripped from my forehead, I turned from the TV and reshuffled my iPod. I remembered today’s Old Testament Reading for the First Sunday in Lent. It features the story of our ancient parents, Adam and Eve, yielding to temptation and falling into sin. I pedaled faster. I felt angry. But who or what was I angry about? Was it the media or Charlie Sheen? Was it something I didn’t even know?

Well, for starters, I kept harking back to that Old Testament reading. I was certainly angry at that damnable snake – or “the serpent”, as the text says. The Bible says that that serpent was “more crafty” (another translation says “subtle”) than any other wild animal the Lord God made.

Ten years ago or so, I was playing a golf match at Oakmont Country Club in south Denton. My opponent was a skinny, gangly, rubbery, athletic-looking guy named Marty. He was a pretty good golfer, and everybody knew it. When I drew his name as a first-round opponent, I thought my chances in the match were pretty slim. But I gave him a good fight. In fact, I was actually ahead in the game until the 14th hole. On the way over to the tee box, Marty’s golf cart screeched to a stop in front of mine. I almost crashed into his cart from behind. Marty turned to me and motioned for me to be quiet. Then he pointed to something on the ground and said “Look.” Right next to my cart was a four to five foot water moccasin snake. Marty then said “Don’t move.” He slowly got out of his cart, grabbed a 7 iron, and proceeded to end the snake’s life prematurely. I said, “Marty, you must be afraid of snakes.” He said, “No, I’m not afraid of them. I hate them.” I regret that I never got around to asking him why. It could have made for an interesting conversation.

The point is not to solicit your thinking about snakes. Rather, I would ask you to consider the subtle, crafty, and very real reality of evil in the world – or, if you will, the force of evil in the world. When I was an eight year old boy I visited the Dachau concentration camp in Germany with my parents. I saw the pictures, the ovens, and the evidence of Adolf Hitler’s “final solution”. Who, in their right mind, could not conclude that this was pure evil? Later on and more recently, I remember sitting a number of times in the middle of the night with ER nurses and attendants at Children’s Medical Center in Dallas who, after reporting to police, had to debrief after treating another child that had been abused and beaten. This is not “St. Elsewhere.” This is not “Grey’s Anatomy”. This is real life. You don’t think there’s a force of evil in the world? Ask them.

The Bible doesn’t deal with abstractions on this subject. It personalizes that force of evil and gives it a variety of names: Satan, the Devil, Lucifer, and so forth. Still, how tempting it is to entertain an abstraction and picture the devil as this little red man with horns and a pitchfork in his hands sitting on your shoulder fiddling with your conscience. It’s so easy to make the force of evil little more than a comic-book figure. In truth, we recoil at the thought that there is actually such a force lurking about, as the Apostle Paul said, like a lion waiting for someone to devour. It’s more comfortable to think of life in this world as rather benign and as one random series of events after another -- hence, the earthquake in Japan and subsequent tsunamis -- while we cross our fingers in the hope that God is sovereign and actually gives a rip about you and about me. It’s like the entertainer sang on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson all those years ago: “When it all comes down, I hope it don’t land on you” – or me, or anyone for that matter.

But the fact of the matter is that it did land – on Adam and Eve, our ancient parents. And, like it or not, we’ve been dealing with the aftermath ever since – one narcissistic train wreck after another.

They started off in paradise! They were to take care of paradise! They could enjoy the food of paradise! They could live, move, and have their being in the paradise their Maker provided for them. It was like an all-expense-paid spring break at Atlantis in the Bahamas! There was perfect freedom as the Lord
defined it: “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”

Someone has said that “Behind every crisis there lies an opportunity.” Enter the subtle, crafty serpent/devil/force of evil. It wasn’t paradise for the serpent/devil/force of evil. It was paradise lost for the serpent/devil/force of evil. No time was wasted in attempting to get our ancient parents to share the misery. One good narcissistic train wreck deserves another.

The first item in the arsenal of attack was the tactic called doubt. “Did God really say ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” asks the devil of Eve. Eve, in reply, said back to the devil what the Lord had first said to her. She confessed what God had said. Good for her.

Not to be deterred, not one to give up so easily, the devil goes to plan B. Plan B is flat-out denial. “You will not certainly die,” says the devil. Before ancient Eve could respond, the devil throws out a perk, a benefit, a dainty morsel for Eve to consider: Eat from that tree and you will be like God – knowing good and evil. In essence, you will be all that you can be.

In the motion picture The Devil’s Advocate, Al Pacino plays the devil who is presented in the form of a high-brass, extremely wealthy New York City lawyer. After having revealed himself as the prince of darkness, he says to the young lawyer named Kevin (played by Keanu Reeves): “I’ve nurtured every sensation man has been inspired to have. I cared about what he wanted, and I never judged him. In spite of all his imperfections, I’m a fan of man. I’m a humanist. I rest my case.” With Adam and Eve, it certainly appears that the devil is a “fan of man.” He has their “best interest” at heart.

Adam and Eve fell for plan B hook, line, and sinker. Enthralled by the beauty of the forbidden fruit, informed of the benefits – nutritional or otherwise – that would come from eating it, they disobeyed their Creator.

After that, we are told that their eyes were opened and they realized that they were naked. For the first time, as the Biblical record makes clear, humans felt shame. It wasn’t paradise anymore. Whatever it was, it was unacceptable. They couldn’t live with that, so they came up with a tactic of their own. It’s called the “cover-up”. They fashioned fig leaves for garments to cover their shame. Taking responsibility for their actions was not in the cards.

Ever since, the human race has been, as Dr. Luther once described, “curvatus in se” – that is, curved in on itself. The Holy Trinity – Father, Son, and Holy Ghost – must step aside to the unholy trinity of me, myself, and I. As Mark Twain once observed: “In the beginning, God made humanity in His own image; ever since, humanity has tried to return the favor.”

My point is this: the problem with humanity is deeper and more pervasive than any one of us realize. The solution to this problem is far more grand and full of wonder than we could ever envision.

That devil, that old narcissistic train wreck, kept at it and kept at it and kept at it. But then one day, he ran into Jesus. And a little word sent the devil packing.

What is that little word? It is the “little word” of the Gospel, the “little word” of forgiveness, the “little word” of unconquerable life and love – from God – that would ever end. All of that is embodied in that distant son of Adam and Eve – even Jesus Christ, our Lord.

And though this world, with devils filled, should threaten to undo us,
We will not fear, for God hath willed His truth to triumph through us.
The prince of darkness grim, we tremble not for him;
his rage we can endure, For lo! his doom is sure,
one little world shall fell him.

That word above all earthly powers, not thanks to them abideth;
The Spirit and the gifts are ours through Him who with us sideth;
Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also;
the body they may kill, God’s truth abideth still,
His kingdom is forever.

Amen.