Sermon "It All Began in a Garden"
Rev. Lonnie Richardson
Rev. Dr. Steven A. Peay
Sunday, July 12, 1998
Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7
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The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, "You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die." ... Now the serpent was more subtle than any other wild creature that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God say, `You shall not eat of any tree of the garden'?" And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; but God said, `You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.'" But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons.
Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7
Worship: At Play in God's Garden
It All Began in a Garden
Rev. Lonnie A. Richardson
Systematic theology is a foundation course in formal theological education. The course usually includes writing a personal credo which has to be well grounded in scripture and integrate exhaustive sources of theological thought. I remember receiving my systematic credo paper back from Dr. Allen Miller of Eden Seminary and reading a note he jotted in the margin ... "Come see me."
Dr. Miller noted that I had done good work on what I submitted, but left out a significant Biblical truth: I failed to include the reality of evil and the human condition. A lot was covered on the creating, redeeming nature of God, but nothing on why God has taken this initiative and our depravity.
I was reminded of this lesson when I read an editorial published in the Wall Street Journal,which was reprinted as a full-page ad in the New York Times. The 900 word essay entitled "The Joy of What?" critiques and laments recent highly publicized scandals involving public figures. A question at the bottom of the ad asked, "When was the last time you had a good conversation about sin?" The editorial concludes with an appeal for "more people in positions of responsibility" to be "willing to come forward and explain in frankly moral terms, that some of the things that people do nowadays are wrong."
"When was the last time you had a good conversation about sin?" We oppose that word sin I am sure. If the Prodigal Son were living today, and off on his escapades, he would not be a sinner. A juvenile delinquent, maybe, but his parents would be to blame for that. His youthful wild oats would be just youthful exuberance, a justifiable normal rebellion against a hypocritical and unjust society... The last thing on earth the Prodigal Son would be in our world culture is a sinner. In fact, nobody is a sinner today! We are all victims, suffering from the "I am a victim " disease.
It goes by such euphemisms as "glandular disorder", "social maladjustment", "ignorance", "neurosis", "hereditary deficiency", "immaturity" or even "bad taste." We speak of errors and mistakes, maladjustments, and miscalculations, deviations and infractions, but not of a condition we see with the story of the garden.
But isn't it a foregone conclusion that some things are in a mess in this world, some things are in a mess in our homes, some things are in a mess in our churches and the mess is caused by people? People who cheat and lie, people who are filled with greed and hate, people who are dishonest and untrustworthy. People who live by the lowest standards. Even in the religious community we have preached the dignity of the person rather than our depravity. We have declared our goodness rather than God's.
So how does this relate to worship and why we worship? Realizing nakedness in the garden, as the Genesis story of Adam and Eve develops, provides the beginning point for the odyssey of why we worship. Shame is real. There is a God honoring morality. When we struggle with shame we try to hide from God. We either hide or confront it. Worship is the means of living in the garden again. We were created to live in a garden.
Worship concentrated on God allows us to see what God is worth. Merely learning a truth about God is intellectual education, not worship. For example, I can know intellectually that God is good, but still be worried silly about something that's coming up this week. If the morning's message is on the sovereignty and goodness of God, I haven't worshipped unless that truth descends from my mind and touches my emotions and my will.
I worship, then, when I realize I've been trusting in my own abilities, not the sovereignty and goodness of God. When I pull my affections off the other things I've been trusting in -- which is why I'm anxious -- and put them on God, I will be touched emotionally. My will is affected when I decide to change the way I handle that threat next week. Worship is grasping a truth about God and then letting that truth strike you in the center of your being. It thrills you and comforts you.
Through worship we meet the God who seeks us out, heals us and frees us to enjoy the garden again. As Roger Palms writes in Living Under the Smile of God , "Worship is not just personal introspection, or we would worship our feelings. Worship is not even a warm glow, or we would worship that. We worship One outside ourselves: we concentrate on Him, we praise Him, we adore Him, we hear His word for He is announcing it to us. We listen in holy awe to the word of God, for it is a part of that "all" of scripture which is given by the out-breathing of God and is personally necessary for "my" correction and "my" instruction in righteousness. It does not satisfy our hunger for God; it whets our appetite."
We can begin again in the garden when we worship and offer worth to the one who promises "If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land." (2 Chronicles 7:14 ) Amen.
"It All Began in A Garden"
{Series "Worship: At Play in God's Garden}
Rev. Steven A. Peay, Ph.D.
Why does the Bible have humankind begin in a garden? Well, there could be several reasons. Other ancient cultures, like the Persian and the Indian, also used the image of a garden as the place of human beginnings. This garden motif was very likely a metaphor for everything that was ordered and good in the relationship between humanity and nature. In Islamic thought "paradise" is a perfect garden setting. (The Greek translators of the Old Testament translated the "garden of Eden" as "the garden of paradise.")
It's interesting, however, that scholars tell us very few of the near-Eastern cultures, like the Hebrew, used this kind of imagery. Largely nomadic, herding societies these people, no doubt, viewed a garden as something signifying an enduring relationship. Only one with land and time could plant, cultivate, and reap the benefits of a garden. It's not surprising, then, that Hebrew thought would see the garden as the symbol of the Creator God's unbroken relationship with the pinnacle of his creation, humanity.
Perhaps this is why we find gardens so soothing and use them as a source of recreation? Or why the poet Dorothy Frances Gurney wrote the verse found on plaques in many a garden: "The kiss of the sun for pardon/The song of the birds for mirth/One is nearer God's heart in a garden/Than anywhere else on earth."
The garden, then, is seen as a place of divine encounter. When humanity breaks the relationship, it is forced out of the garden. Nevertheless, God still seeks to maintain relationship, just the venue changes. Now the place of encounter is the desert, the wilderness (eremo in Greek and where our word hermit, or wilderness dweller, comes from). God calls his people to himself in the desert and then leads them out of it into the land of promise -- "flowing with milk and honey" and cultivated like a garden.
It is significant that Jesus' struggle to do the will of his Father came to a head in the garden of Gethsemane. The Fathers of the Church saw wonderful parallels between Eden and Gethsemane -- one a place where God's will was ignored and selfishness reigned, the other where God's will was done and unselfishness triumphed. Just as Eden's tree was the source of suffering, the wood of the cross became the tree of life. As the prophet Isaiah saw it, where God is "the desert blooms." The most desolate spot can become a garden when we encounter the Creator there and join our lives to his.
I think, then, that it becomes rather clear why we've chosen the garden as a metaphor for worship. Like the garden, Christian worship is a place, a time of encounter with God. It is truly re-creation, because in the act of worship we not only ascribe worth to God, but also become most truly ourselves. We are re-created, restored, in the image and likeness of God. What is more, worship provides the fertile soil for us to grow in spiritual maturity. The seed of our relationship with God is planted and then in the company of Christian believers it is nurtured and begins to bear fruit. This is why the Scripture and every significant spiritual writer speak of the importance, the absolute necessity, of common worship. We are not Christians apart from the church -- any more than a branch is a branch apart from its tree.
Gardens are also places of play. Grown people frolic in gardens -- why? ; because gardens recall our innocence, our childlikeness. Close your eyes and picture Michelangelo's depiction of the Creation on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. There the Creator, bearded and robed, floating in space is reaching out his arm in an elegant, sweeping gesture toward the newly-created Adam. Adam, in turn, is reaching toward God, looking at him in almost a dreamlike state. Their eyes meet, and the two hands almost touch. God and the human brilliantly depicted as eternally, primordially related. When Christians worship, what we do represents the mutual gaze of the human and the divine eye. When we worship in church we are turning toward the divine arm that waits for us, beckoning us back to our origins. As the apostle James says "Draw near to God and he will draw near to you"(Jas. 4:8). In liturgy, the action of worship, the divine and the human meet and almost touch.
In worship we are invited to come back to the garden, to play in the presence of the one who created us. I think this is why Romano Guardini, among the greatest liturgical scholars of this century, wrote:
Such is the wonderful fact that the liturgy demonstrates, it unites art and reality in a supernatural childhood before God. . . . [Worship] has one thing in common with the play of the child and the life of art -- it has no purpose, but is full of profound meaning. It is not work, but play. To be at play, or to fashion a work of art in God's sight -- not to create, but to exist -- such is the essence of the liturgy. From this is derived its sublime mingling of profound earnestness and divine joyfulness.
In truth, we are nearer God's heart not in a garden, but in worship. In worship we come back to the garden, back to our beginnings and our true selfhood and return to our everyday world seeing it for what it really is. Because we have been in God's garden we can see the world with God's eyes, know that we are his children, know that we are truly near his heart.
It still begins in a garden.
