Genesis 2:15-25 In The Beginning Covenant Partners 1 Rev. Brian North October 2 nd, 2016 Our denomination has a two-word phrase that we use to describe the relationship between people in a church, as well as between Jesus and his disciples. And that phrase is covenant partners. Rather than calling the people of a church members this is the phrase we use that those who join the church are covenant partners. Member language sounds like a club, like a privileged group. But that s not what it means to be a part of a church, to be in relationship with one another and with the Lord. We re covenant partners with God as we seek to live for Him, and we re covenant partners with each other, as we seek to live for Him together, in community, to serve the world around us and carry out his mission for our church together. When you make a covenant, you re making a promise. You re saying to the other person in the covenant that you re in this with them you re committed to them you ll be faithful to them and stick with them in good times and in bad. And living out our covenant partnership with God is really at the heart of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. And this second half of Genesis 2 gives us a Biblical foundation for covenant partnership in our lives: with God, and in community (church, marriage, etc.) with other covenant partners. This passage breaks down into two primary sections: verses 15-17 continue the telling of the man, adam (which is Hebrew for man, and for a certain male name: Adam!) in the garden and the commands of God to the man; and the second section is verses 18-25 which culminate in the creation of the woman and the two being joined together in marriage. And while the two sections are distinct, the themee of covenant partnership binds them together. In verses 15-17, God takes the man that he's created and given life to and puts him in the Garden of Eden. This is not an accident, as we saw last week in verse 8. But now we're given more information about God's intention for the man. He's put in the garden to work it and take care of it. We are
designed to work. Work is good, God wants us to work, and most people recognize the benefits of work. 2 I remember a particular event when my two oldest kids were younger maybe 6 and 4 or so. With decent-sized sticks they were wielding like baseball bats, they were hacking away at the biggest tree in a park near our house in Chehalis. It had to be 60 or 70 feet tall, and at least two feet in diameter. I asked them what they were doing, and they said that they were working they were chopping down the tree. They were dead serious. They even suggested that I might want to move further away so I didn't get hit by the falling tree when it came down. So even kids recognize that work is good up until their minds become corrupted by the allures of video games and other laziness-inducing temptations. The problem today is that our society is against work. Early retirement is the goal. We say, I wish I could live like Adam did, doing nothing all day. We have this twisted notion that Eden was a paradise where Adam got to sit around in his Barcalounger, enjoyed homegrown fruit smoothies and watched football all day long. There's a misguided notion that work is a consequence of sin, which comes from a misunderstanding of this passage and a misunderstanding of Genesis chapter 3. And so we tend to undervalue work, and think it's bad or in the way of life. But that's not the case. God gave Adam work right here. Work is good, and it s a part of what it means to be human and part of our covenant partnership with God. We then come to another misunderstanding: that God is a prohibitive God: That He's the God of the No. This is a tragic misconception, because it impacts many people's foundational understanding of God, which then negatively impacts their faith, or prevents them from coming to faith. Maybe some of you have this same misconception in your head, that God just tells us what we can't do. Nothing could be further from the truth. Verse 16 says, And the Lord God commanded the man, 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 surely die (Gen. 2:16).
Pop Quiz: Which of the trees can Adam eat from? Answer: All but one. 3 God is a God of permission. He gives Adam incredible freedom. He gets all the food he needs, there's plenty of fresh water, he has a job to do, a bit later he gets to name the animals...god is even going to give him a wife! God is definitely good. God has provided for his every need. God gives one restriction here, and people equate God with restrictions. That's bogus! God is good, he loves his creation, he cares for it, and he provides for it, and gives us incredible freedoms. But all anyone remembers is that God gave a restriction. Now, it is true that there are additional prohibitions given later, such as the 10 Commandments we looked at them a little over a year ago in a series on the 10 Commandments. But don't forget all that God has given us the freedom to enjoy. God gives boundaries for our benefit, because he cares about us, and to help us to live as a faithful covenant partner with him, with our spouse, with our faith community...and within those boundaries there is incredible freedom. God is good and has in mind what's best for us, and so we should trust him and be faithful to him. He wants to say to us one day: Well done, good and faithful servant (Matthew 25:23). When we live in covenant partnership with God, that s the opportunity we have: to be his faithful servant, in response to his love and grace and commitment to us. Whether that s through the work we do to earn a paycheck, or the work of maintaining the yard at our home, or the work we do to maintain our marriage, or the work we do of ministering to our friends and neighbors and living in a way that brings glory and honor to God it s all work that God puts before us in the garden of life. That's verses 15-17. In the second section, verses 18-24, we see several things happen, and it culminates in the creation of the woman and the joining of the two together. And again we see here God's incredible provision, God's care for creation. God is faithful in his part of this covenant partnership.
There was once a man who said, God, why did you make women so soft and beautiful? God said, So you d love them. Then the man asked, Then, God, why did you make women so emotional and illogical? God said, So they would love you! I don t share that with you to perpetuate unhelpful stereotypes about women or men, but to illustrate that: God wants spouses to love each other; to be faithful to one another to live in covenant partnership with each other no matter how illogical it may seem to do so at times. God is so good that he gave the man the woman, and he gave the woman the man, so they could love one another, so that they could have tangible opportunities to practice faithfulness and live in covenant with one another in community. Let's back up for a moment. Throughout Creation, God evaluates his work. After each day, he sits back, looks at things, and says, It is good. God makes sure that everything is just right. After he created the man, he said, This is not good. So, as many women will be quick to point out: he then modified and improved things and created the woman. Actually, God said, This isn't good. He can t be alone. I need to give him a helper that is suitable for him (Gen. 2:18). Now this word, helper, in the Hebrew is ezer, and it's used 21 times in the OT. Two of those instances are right here. Out of the other 19 times ezer occurs, 15 of them are used to describe God. For example, Psalm 124:8 reads, Our help (ezer) is in the name of the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth (Psalm 124:8). i So this is a noble word that's used to describe the woman. It's not a derogatory word, it's not telling us that the woman is second-class. It's a strong, good word that is most often used in the Bible to describe God. We're also told that God sought to make a helper who was suitable for him. The word here has the connotation of comparable or according to. God's intent is to create a comparable helper, a partner, for the man. So what does God do to find a helper? He parades all the animals before the man. Here's a potential suitable helper how about a porcupine? No? How about a cow? No? How about this... and on it goes, with the man naming the animals. But no suitable helper was found. And so by the end of the parade of animals Adam must have been bummed. None of the creatures looked right. So God says, Thanks for naming the creatures. Now let me take care of that 4
suitable helper problem. He gives the man a dose of general anesthetic, performs the first surgery, heals him up miraculously, and forms the first woman. And Adam wakes up and says, Whoa, man! She's the bomb! I want her! That's not a translation you're going to find in any Bibles...but it's not far from the truth. The more literal translation is, This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh (Gen. 2:23). This isn't just a statement about their common origin, or their similar build, and so forth. Old Testaemnt scholar Walter Brueggemann argues that the phrase...is actually a covenant formula and that it speaks not of a common birth but of a common, [mutual] loyalty. ii They're loyal to one another they re in covenant partnership with one another. And it s solidified even further when Adam says, She shall be called Woman because she was taken out of Man. Just as the English words woman and man are related, so it is in Hebrew, with Eesh being the word for man, and eeshah being the word for woman. So there s a connection, or a partnership between them that even shows up linguistically, let alone in deeper ways. Bruggeman goes on to write, The place of the garden is for this covenanted human community of solidarity, trust and well-being. They are one! That is, in covenant Walter Brueggemann, Interpretation: Genesis; p. 47). So Adam is saying, She s the one. We go together. We re partners. Verse 25 then says, The man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed. While this is true literally, it's also true metaphorically: There is nothing that comes between them. They have trust, they have commitment, they have obedience and they are fully covenant partners with each other and also with their Creator. They are faithful to one another. They're vulnerable with one another. He listens to her, he converses with her, even sits down for a cup of tea when he d like to be out with his buddies. She helps him stay organized, encourages him in his work, and even suggests that maybe on Sunday afternoon he ought to rest and watch a football game. Just as Adam has the daily choice of maintaining his partnership with God or nor, he also has the choice of whether or not to maintain his partnership with his wife. She has the same choices, though the emphasis 5
and the burden in the passage is clearly on the guy. It's the man who Scripture says leaves his family and is united to his wife. When he saw the woman, he said, This is the one for me. He made that covenant, that commitment to her. And every day Adam had to decide whether or not he was going to live out that covenantal partnership with God, and in his marriage. He didn't have to go very far before being faced with the decision, because that tree with the caution tape around it was sitting right in the middle of his property. Every day he d walk by that tree. And every day you and I are faced with the same decision about our covenantal partnership with God, and the communities we re a part of. This includes our marriages, for those who are married, and then also with one another in the Church. It may not be a tree that we walk by, but it s other stuff that has caution tape around it where God has said, don t go there : the idols of money and materialism and power and pride; the allure of pornography or the co-worker or neighbor with whom we might be just a bit too quick to pay attention to; laziness and slothfulness that pull us away from the work God has given us such as our jobs, or the work our marriage needs, or the work of parenting, or the work of the church as we build up one another as disciples of Jesus Christ, and as we see to share the gospel with a lost and broken world. There s a lot that tries to break apart the covenant partnerships we have with God and with the people in our lives. In response to God s goodness and grace, let s maintain and strengthen those covenant partnerships. Take seriously, as God does, the covenant partnership that you and He have. We don t need to look any further than the cross of Christ to know how much God values that covenantal relationship, and how serious he takes it, and so I think in response to that, we can care for and tend to what God has given us. If you re married, work on your covenant partnership with your spouse and help make your marriage all it can be. And in the church, the collection of people who have entered into this covenant partnership with God, let s work together to bring honor and glory to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, so that the light of Christ would shine brightly for the world to see, so that others would also glorify their father in heaven. We re in this together as a churchwe are covenant partners in this together here at Rose Hill, and with other churches 6
as well. And if you re not a covenant partner with us here at Rose Hill, I encourage you to take that step, to solidify your relationship with Jesus and with the church and with the church s covenant partners here at Rose Hill. 7 I know all these things can take a lot of work. But that s exactly what God told Adam when He put him in the garden: Get to work on tending the garden. And: Your relationship with God, your marriage (if married, of course), and your relationship with other Christians are the gardens or some of them that God has put you and me in. There may be other relationships in your life where it s a covenantal partnership between you and them and the Lord. And he s telling you and me to be faithful in our covenantal partnerships and to work taking good care of them. Let s pray Amen. i Others include: Exodus 18:4, Deuteronomy 33:7, 26, 29; Psalm 33:20; 146:5, and others. ii Brueggemann, Walter, Of the Same Flesh and Bone Catholic Biblical Quarterly 32 (1970) 532-42, as quoted in Victor P. Hamilton's Commentary on Genesis (NICOT Series), p. 170. Brueggemann makes the same argument in his commentary on Genesis in the Interpretation Commentary Series.