Genesis 2:4b-7, 15-17; 3:1-8 Matt Mardis-LeCroy Des Moines, IA September 11, 2016 Hide and Seek I. It is such an arresting image: In love, the LORD God comes looking for us. But where are we? In the bushes, out of sight, quaking with fear. God looks for us; we hide from God. That sounds about right to me. But I m getting ahead of myself. Good morning! Welcome to worship on this kick-off weekend here at Plymouth Church. This has to be one of my very favorite Sundays of the year. The choirs are back! (What can I say, choir? You complete me). Our new Minister of Discipleship is officially welcomed and all ready to go! (No pressure, Lindsey). Church school, confirmation, children s choirs, adult education. It s all happening! Every September, we begin again. New life is on the loose here at Plymouth Church! And right up front I want to tell you about two changes in the life of Plymouth, two things that will make this year different. First, today we begin our journey with the Narrative Lectionary. We start in September with Genesis; by the time we get to Pentecost on June 4, 2017, we will have taken a guided tour straight through Scripture; we will be better acquainted with the Big Story of God s love for us. That is the first change. The second change? We are calling this the Year of Compassion here at Plymouth Church.
Because compassion is the thread running through the texts we will hear together this year; the big idea that binds them together. These stories from Scripture will help us to see that compassion is the defining character trait of God. What being mean is to the Grinch; what being a big yellow bird is to Big Bird that s what compassion is to God. A defining character trait. But watch this now: if God is all about compassion, and if we belong to God, then guess what our defining character trait ought to be? Our compassionate God calls us to be people of compassion. i That is what we will explore all this year at Plymouth Church. Are you excited? You will be. It s going to be an extraordinary year. II. We begin at the beginning, with this story from the Book of Genesis and this image that grabs me: God is looking for us; we are hiding from God. That is the way it was, back in the beginning. That is the way it has been ever since. But let s make sure we are all on the same page. What are we dealing with here in Genesis chapter 2? Eve, Adam, the Tree of Life, a talking snake -what kind of a story is this? A lot of people get hung up at this point. I have a vivid memory of sitting in some Sunday School class. I am maybe 8 or 9 years old. I have a #2 pencil, a King James Bible and a blank map of the Arabian Peninsula. My assignment? To pinpoint the precise location of the Garden of Eden; to specify the longitude and latitude of paradise. We treated it as a historical document like my Sunday School class was the opening scene of a really lame Indiana Jones sequel. But is that we have here? History? I don t think so. I don t think Genesis chapter 2 is trying to pass itself off as history. When I read this text when I dig in to this story it does not sound like history; it sounds like myth. But please here what I am about to say. I am not insulting the text. I m not calling it names. When we talk about the Bible, myth is not a four letter word. Myth means a story that tries to tell some Big Truth, Truth with a capitol T, the truth about who we are and what God is like and what life is all about. Myth does not try to tell us the way things once were at some particular
time and place; myth tries to tell us the way things always are, in every time, at every place. A good myth may be more true than mere history. So: what does this myth mean? What truth is this story trying to tell? Once upon a time, our life began in a garden. We had everything we needed. We had each other and we had good work to do. But things fall apart. We don t live in a garden anymore. We live in exile now, somewhere east of Eden. ii We are separated from each other. And our fear makes things worse. We even hide from the One who in love comes looking for us. iii That is the human condition. That is what Genesis 2 and 3 are trying to say. And I don t know if this story ever happened, but I believe that it is true. iv This is the truth about us. v III. Fifteen years. It has been fifteen years since the worst terrorist attack in American history. Where were you, fifteen years ago? What do you remember about that day? I wasn t here yet; I was at home I mean, in the house where I grew up. On September the 11th 2001, I was at my parents house in Pennsylvania, getting ready to go back to Princeton for my last year of seminary. I woke up that morning and I hadn t turned on the TV or the radio; I hadn t looked at the internet. A little before 9:00, mom called me from her office. Turn on the TV, she said. Which channel? I asked. Doesn t matter, she said. And then, like many of you, I watched in horror as the whole thing unfolded. Like many of you, I thought of friends who might be in harm s way. I tried and mostly failed to reach them. Like many of you, I eventually made my way to church, to grieve and to pray and just to be with other people. Many of us will take some time today to remember: to remember the courage of the first
responders; to remember how we leaned on each other in the days after the attacks; to remember the ways in which that terrible day brought out the best in us. But I hope that isn t all that we remember. On this 15 th anniversary with a little time and a little distance from the darkness of that day on this 15 th anniversary, we need to remember something else. We need to remember the ways in which 9/11 brought out the worst in us. It was Eden all over again. Something terrible happened. We got scared, we got stupid, and we started to hide from the loving God who came looking for us. We had a choice, in those first days and months after the attacks, about how we would respond and what kind of nation we would become. We could have heeded the better angels of our nature, come together in a spirit of shared sacrifice, renewed our commitment to being a free, and just and decent people. And sometimes we did that. But other times too many times we did the opposite of that. Too many times in the last fifteen years, we have given in to our fear. We surrendered some of our liberties, because our government told us that would be necessary in order to keep us safe. We started to see the world suspiciously calling the flight attendant over because that guy in 26B is wearing a turban; angrily organizing to block the construction of a new mosque in our community. We become a fragile people, frightened of those who are not like us, freaked out by the mere presence of Muslim neighbors. We get scared and we get stupid, because that is what we do. Something terrible happens, and then our fear makes it worse. Eden all over again. But thank God, this is not only a story about us. It is also it is mostly a story about God, about the way that God responds to us. When we get it wrong, God wants to make it right. When we go into hiding, God goes looking for us. That is the way that it was, way back in the beginning. That is the way it is still.
Even this morning, even now, I believe God is still looking for us. Even after all that we have done, God is still looking for us. No matter how much we mess up, God is still looking for us. No matter how bad our behavior, how profound our paralysis, how ingrained our ignorance, how crippling our shame, how deep our fear, God always comes looking for us. At the time of the evening breeze, you can still hear the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden. Even after all of our hiding, God is still seeking. Maybe today is the day when we will finally be found. Plymouth Congregational Church United Church of Christ 4126 Ingersoll Avenue Des Moines, Iowa 50312 Phone: (515) 255-3149 Fax: (515) 255-8667 E-mail: mmardis-lecroy@plymouthchurch.com Notes i Marcus Borg says this more succinctly than I do: The word [compassion] also represents the summation of [Jesus ] teaching about both God and ethics. For Jesus, compassion was the central quality of God and the central moral quality of a life centered in God. Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time. (New York, NY: HarperOne, 1995), p.46. ii East of Eden is, of course, a reference to the Steinbeck novel. Joel W. Rosenberg observes that this story portrays human life as a kind of exile from a prior perfection. The Harper Collins Study Bible. Wayne A. Meeks, General Editor. (New York, NY: Harper Collins, 1993), p.9. iii John Calvin even views the attempt to fashion clothing as a means for keeping God at a distance. Commentaries on the First Book of Moses Called Genesis. The Rev. John King, Translator. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1999), pp.158-159. iv I owe this line to Marcus Borg. The Heart of Christianity. (New York, NY: Harper One, 2015) p.50. But this isn t just some crazy liberal idea. C.S. Lewis, a 20 th century write much loved by evangelical Christians, knew about the power of myth to convey truth. https://resurrectingraleigh.wordpress.com/2012/03/23/c-s-lewis-on-the-bible-mythtruth-fact-and-genesis/ v Wil Willimon shares the oft-repeated and to my mind mostly speculative observation that this is a story about each one of us, a movement from innocence to exile that each person recapitulates in her own life. Genesis 2-3 may be read as a story of emerging human self-consciousness. The Lectionary Commentary: Theological Exegesis for Sunday s Texts. Roger E. Van Hard, Editor. (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2001), pp.7-11.