Sermon: "No Going Back," June 6, 2021

“The Explusion from the Garden,” Thomas Cole, 1828.

Preacher: The Rev. Ryan Slifka
Scripture: Genesis 3

Today we continue our Genesis sermon series with Adam and Eve in the garden. As the Bible narrates it, the first man and woman are shaped out of the first and placed in a garden called “Eden.” Paradise. Then God gives them two tasks: the first being to till and care for this fruit-tree filled wonderland, and the second to be “fruitful and multiply.” There's only one rule, one law. Of all the thousands of trees—don't eat that one: the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If they eat that one, they’ll die. It’s poison. Here's the deal, God says: all you gotta do is cooperatively care for this lush paradisaical wonderland, hand-in-hand with your Creator, and spend the rest of your time making babies. Just don't avoid that one tree. Sounds pretty good to me.

So much for that, though. A chapter later the good times cease their rollin'. A whisper or two slithers into their ears, causing them to doubt the whole arrangement. The fruit of every single tree of the garden but one is no longer enough. The Big Guy must have been holding back, keeping the knowledge of good and evil as his own private reserve. This is the stuff that made “God” God must made it off-bounds, not because they’d die. But because he didn't want competition.

So they go for it. Pluck, bite, chew, gulp, all of it down. But it doesn't work the way they thought it would. The fruit opens their eyes, and they suddenly see themselves the way God sees them. They gaze downward, and they can see their bodies in their fullness. It all their weakness and fragility, completely vulnerable. Animals at the mercy of time, of sickness, disease, and death. None of this occurred to them when we were tucked innocently in the womb-like safety of God's divine presence. But like twelve year olds insisting they're ready to be trusted with the car keys, they just aren't ready. And by the time they realize it they're already on the highway, in fifth gear—barrelling facing down a head-on collision.

They try their best to cover it up, but there's no leaf big enough to block out their crippling shame. They duck and hide, but there's no shrub thick enough to block out their fear. Death is at the door.

They're found out. God comes calling, “where are you?” and easily finds them. “I heard the sound of you in the garden,” Adam replies. “I hid myself because I was naked and afraid.”

When they're interrogated, fear flares up again. Adam blames Eve (and God for creating her). Eve blames the snake. But God, being God, knows the truth. The only boundary there was, set for their protection, has been violated. They can't untaste what they've tasted, they can't unlearn what they've learned. They must now leave the harmony of the garden, this place of total communion with God, and journey into a world of increased pain and suffering, gender-based domination, and back-breaking labour. Alienation from eachother, their Creator, and the world God created. All the while—temptation—snake-like, will constantly nip at their heels. The gates are locked and there's no going back to the time before. There's no going back to Eden.

Now, the Bible's contention is that this story isn't mere fiction. Nor is it straightforward history. This story is the true human story. Our story. That there was a time, beyond human memory, where human life wasn't the way it is now. Like two-year olds dashing from one side of the beach to the other bathing-suit free, we lived in a tightly knit, child-like communion with our Creator, with each other, and the Created world. To be clear, this paradise wasn't perfect—the Bible doesn't suggest that God's work of Creation was seven-days-and-done. But it does suggest that there was a time where our lives weren't dominated by shame, hurt, struggle or domination. And death didn't stalk around every corner, nor did fear of it motivate our decisions.

But then something went wrong. Propelled by doubt, we moved from a posture of complete trust to skepticism. Desiring to be more than the fragile, limited creatures we are, we grasped after good and evil as if we had the capacity to truly know the difference. We went from walking the path lovingly set out for us, to making our own way that found us lost in the wilderness, only to find the gates to paradise shut behind us. With snake-like sin, always nipping at our heels. And on account of it the world we now find ourselves wandering in is characterized by shame, by fear, and the total reality of death. Patriarchy, poverty, and slavery, people working their fingers to the bone. Sexual abuse and  broken families and dysfunctional communities. Atomic bombs and climate change. Residential School graveyards and War Memorials. The Bible tells us that things ain't supposed to be this way. Things were never perfect. But they could have been different, should have been different. Only there was a short-circuit somewhere up the human chain that made it the way it is. Rather than the way it should be.

And we know it. We know because there's something in all of us that knows it's not supposed to be this way. That things could be different. We know that “we're stardust, golden, and have got to get ourselves back to the garden” with apologies to Joni Mitchell. Every dream of a better society, every desire for sobriety. Every social movement and every redemptive moment is a reminder of our Edenic origins, and our original divine intent. But the truth is that we can't seem to get it all back on track again. We can't even seem to overcome our own internal deficiencies. I mean, think about your own life and just how impossible it is to actually change something about yourself. You know what it's like. And we're talking this on but on a grand, global-historical scale. No matter how knowledgeable or advanced we may get, there's no fig leaf big enough to cover us up, no bush tall enough to hide what Christian tradition has called “original sin.” There's just no getting back to the garden. We know it's not supposed to be this way. But no matter what we do, we can't find our way home, we can't claw our way back through through Eden's gates. No matter how hard we try.

Now, I know what you're thinking. “Thanks for being such a downer, Ryan.” “If I wanted to be depressed by the utter depravity of our human situation, I would have just stayed home and scrolled Facebook for the hour.” Nice, bleak picture you've painted there. But this is the thing about the Bible, though. It has no trouble staring the truth and trouble of human life in the face. That's the thing about Christianity. The human condition is totally exposed. There's no downplaying our brokenness. We're naked, mortal and afraid and living East of Eden. We're dust and to dust we shall return. It's all in scripture.

It's all there on the table. There's a difference for us, though. There's a difference for the people of Jesus. For us, this knowledge may be difficult, but it's not debilitating, depressing, or devastating. Because as deeply troubling as the truth is, we hold a deeper truth that makes the trouble bearable. More than bearable even.

And it's all in this little tender detail found in verse twenty one. As Adam and Eve are leaving the garden, setting out on the long, snaking trail of civilization. You'll notice that God, it says, “the Lord God made garments of skins for the man and for his wife, and clothed them.” Where Adam and Eve tried and failed to remedy the situation on their own, sort of pitifully, with fig leaves. God doesn't just leave them to their own sad devices. God sews for them animal skins, something far more durable than figs. They're covered in divine grace, clothed against the harshest elements of this fallen world. The world they face isn't the way it's supposed to be. There's no going back to Eden. But God doesn't abandon them. God outfits them for the world as it is.

And that's the deeper truth for us that makes the truth about the world and our lives bearable. This is why we can journey with Adam and Eve in this fallen world of ours without giving in to despair. We know we can't cover our nakedness, our sin, our guilt, our fear or shame. We know that we can't reverse the tide of human history, we can't go back to Eden. Some of history’s worst atrocities have happened when we’ve thought that, by the way. But we believe that we are not abandoned or forsaken, that we're not doomed to our own destruction or fated to wander this way alone, or forever. And it’s all on account of God.

God is the reason. God’s the reason why we believe that this fallen world is the arena of an ancient, powerful blessing, in spite of its appearance to the contrary. We believe that in spite of our nakedness, shame, and self-destruction, we as individuals and humanity as a whole are draped in, immersed in, a grace that the worst of our world can never negate or destroy.

Not only does this God hide our nakedness with animal skins, we believe that in Jesus Christ this God has covered himself in the fear and shame that characterizes our own fallen flesh and bone. The one who had his garments torn, was stripped naked, and met death on a cross is God with us outside the garden, carrying our burdens, and bearing the consequences of our sin, and the sin of our ancestors in his own body. And in his resurrection we’re given sneak preview of his promise to our exile. Not by bringing us back to a garden as it was way back when, but by one day raising us from death, and weaving an Eden of every inch of the universe. With God we're decked out in garments durable enough to hold the very worst the world has to offer at bay until God's garden footsteps ring out in every nook and cranny of creation. And that, my friends, is good news if I ever heard it. Told you I wasn't just being a downer.

Brothers and sisters, we live in a fallen world. The great twentieth century theologian Reinhold Niebhur once said that Original Sin is the only empirically verifiable Christian doctrine. That is to say that the world ain’t the way it’s supposed to be. The evidence is all around. One look at the news, one peak into the depth of our own hearts, and we know that it’s true. It oughta be different. We oughta be different. We all know this. And long for it to be otherwise.

The bad news is that we can’t go back to a time of innocence. There’s nothing we can do to cover this up. Nor can we muscle our way into Eden by our own wisdom, ingenuity or brute strength. The bad news it that there’s simply no going back.

The good news is, though, that even in our fallenness, even in our nakedness, even in our self-propelled exile and wandering from our original intent, we have been clothed in the eternal mercy of the Living God. From before the beginning of time, God has been with us and for us. This not only makes this world in all its anguish bearable, it makes it beautiful. From day one, God has been with you in your struggle and pain, and for you in overcoming your sin and your shame. It not only makes our own lives liveable, it makes them lovely. Broken, yes. But beautiful and blessed, just the same.

It’s not the way it’s supposed to be, and there may be no going back. But it’s also not the way it’s gonna be, because there’s always a future with the God who walked in the garden, the God who walks the earth in Jesus Christ.

Amen.