A Twist of the Lie

Genesis 3:1-7

September 3, 2017 • Mount Pleasant UMC

“I can resist everything except temptation.” So wrote the nineteenth century Irish author Oscar Wilde (qtd. in Goldingay, Genesis for Everyone—Part One, pg. 46). Wilde may have been speaking facetiously, but his statement rings true for all of us. Honestly, it wouldn’t be called “temptation” if it weren’t, well, tempting. Think about the number of businesses who use that reality to their advertising advantage. There are businesses that sell everything from lingerie to ice cream that go by the name of “Temptations.” And doing a Google search of “temptation ads” will bring up all sorts of…interesting things; I don’t recommend you let your kids do that sort of search! But what is so interesting to me in many of those ads, which I won’t put up on the screen, is that in so many of them is found the imagery of a man, a woman, and an apple—imagery that is rooted in our cultural consciences but which originally comes from the story that we read this morning in the very first book of the Bible, the book of Genesis.

This morning, we’re starting a new five-week series based on stories from the Old Testament. Sometimes, as Christians, we focus exclusively on the New Testament, and we treat the Old Testament as, well, old. Not relevant. Not useful. Some even treat the stories we find in these pages as outdated or even as fairy tales. So for the next few weeks, we’re going to look at these ancient stories under the umbrella title, “The Epic of Eden,” because these stories really are epic in scope. And they continue to teach us about ourselves, because in all honestly, despite the thousands of years that have passed since these stories were written down (not to mention the thousands of years since they happened!), humanity has not changed all that much. I think we’ll see, as we look at Abram, Noah, Jacob and others, that despite becoming more technologically sophisticated and intellectually polished, in the things that make us human, we are still very much like our ancient ancestors.

So this epic begins, not surprisingly, at the very beginning. The book of Genesis, and the whole Bible, begins with the story of creation. Actually, it begins with two stories of creation. Genesis 1:1-2:3 is an epic poem, an artful and lyrical description of creation, while Genesis 2:4 to the end of that chapter is more like a folk story you would tell children around a campfire. The two stories differ in some of their details, but obviously the original author of Genesis felt we needed both, and that they are complimentary. The key is to not get bogged down in the details, but to hear what Genesis really wants to say: God created. This is where some well-meaning folks get stuck, trying to reconcile every single detail of Genesis with some geological record and theories that are always changing. Others will remind us that stories like this were not unusual in ancient near eastern literature. Every culture had a creation story, usually involving wars between gods and goddesses, or a hero who overcame great odds. One story in particular, from Babylon, has striking parallels to the account in Genesis, and while some scholars say the Bible copied that account, I believe it’s even more likely that both stories are rooted in an actual event that is remembered by many different cultures (cf. Cline, From Eden to Exile, pgs. 3-7). The Bible, though, has a different point in telling us the story this way. It’s not really about how creation happened; the Bible isn’t trying to be a science book. The Bible is trying to tell us one thing: not how, but who. The stories of creation are not about how it all happened, but the fact that God created.

If you notice the pattern, particularly of the first creation story, God first creates the habitat (light, air, water, land) and then he creates the inhabitants (sun and moon, birds and fish, animals). And then there is the pinnacle of his creation: man and woman. Humanity. Only when humanity shows up does God decide that creation is “very good” (1:31; Richter, The Epic of Eden, pgs. 99-103). Genesis is clear on the purpose in the creation of humanity: God desired fellowship with us. He created us to walk with him, to be in perfect fellowship with him, and to trust that he will bring us “good.”

To be able to receive the “good,” however, requires trust in the one who created us. God placed the man and the woman, Adam and Eve, into a paradise. They had absolutely everything they needed, and they were given permission to eat from any tree in the garden except one. God tells Adam, “You must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die” (2:17). Just a sidebar: according to Genesis 2, it’s right after God tells Adam this that he decides the man needs a helper. God knew that we men are not very good at following directions; we need a helper! Of course, the argument can also be made that it’s the helper that got Adam into trouble in Genesis 3, so I guess Genesis is reminding us that both men and women struggle with temptation. But here is the point of the first couple of chapters of Genesis: God’s perfect plan was for his people to be in his place with his presence alongside them. The only prohibition God gave to his children was that he alone would decide what is good and evil. He alone has the right to name those truths himself (cf. Richter 104).

So, at the end of Genesis 2, all is well. It’s paradise! How long that went on without interruption, we don’t know. But at some point, a serpent shows up. A talking serpent. A serpent, Genesis says, created by God along with the rest of the creation. A serpent who serves as a reminder that God’s creation was not entirely inclined to live the kind of life God desired them to live (Goldingay 44). The serpent has free will, as do Adam and Eve. He can choose, and choose he does. And while in Christian imagination and based on Revelation 12:9, we equate the serpent with the devil, with Satan, Genesis does not do so explicitly. Genesis does not name the tempter here; the author simply presents the story as it must have been handed down for generations. A man, a woman, and a talking snake. Because of this story, of course, the snake has come to be seen as a symbol of temptation, of evil, or danger in many settings. In Genesis 1, God gave Adam and Eve dominion, authority over all creation, and now in Genesis 3, the serpent tries to assert his dominion over humanity (cf. Goldingay 44). He is “more crafty” than all the other wild animals, and in that attitude of deceit, he comes to Eve with a question: “Did God really say…?” (3:1).

Before we get to the question, though, I’m sometimes asked why the serpent came to Eve and not Adam. Now, we’ll find out later in the chapter that Adam is, apparently, nearby, but we’re told directly that the serpent talked to Eve. This passage has been used for centuries to say that women are the weaker sex, that women are somehow more prone to temptation, but I honestly don’t think that’s true at all. There are many reasons the serpent came to Eve first, including the fact that, according to Genesis 2, when God gives Adam the restriction against eating from this particular tree, Eve was not yet created (2:15-17). We don’t know if God told her this restriction directly at a later point, or if God had relied on Adam to pass along this one rule (Goldingay 46). Either way, one thing seems certain: the serpent knows that if he can get Eve on his side, he will get Adam as well. If anything, this text is not a testimony to the weakness of the female but a witness to Eve’s strength. She knows firsthand the generosity of God, she knows that God is the one who decides what is good and what is evil, and she knows that ignoring God would be dangerous.

And, I believe, that’s why she has added to God’s restriction. Last week, I reminded you of the time of the Exile, when God’s people were taken away from their homes because they had been disobedient, and how, when they returned to the promised land, they built extra rules around God’s law so that they wouldn’t break the real law. The extra rules served like a buffer zone; you might break the manmade law, but that would at least keep you from breaking God’s law. They might have learned that from Eve. She knows what God’s restriction is: don’t eat from the tree. But Eve has added her own restriction, a buffer zone, which she reports as God’s own words. When the serpent asked if God really told them not to eat from any tree, Eve says that’s a lie, but then proceeds to tell a lie of her own. “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden,” she tells the snake, “but God did say, ‘You must not eat from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die” (3:3). When the serpent, who seems to know what God has said, hears that Eve is making up her own rules, he knows he can twist his own lie and her as well into something that will cause a rupture in the relationship Adam and Eve have with their creator.

Specifically, the serpent puts an irresistible offer in front of Eve. If you eat from the tree, the serpent says, “You will be like God, knowing good and evil” (3:5). You will be like God! You will be the ones who, from then on, can determine good and evil. You won’t have to rely on God anymore! You alone will control your own destiny! And what does Genesis say Eve does next? She looks at the fruit, she draws near to the forbidden tree, and she sees what? The fruit is good. It’s pleasing to the eye. Already, she is taking God’s role; she is making up her mind about what is good and what is evil. In Eve’s mind, she is already gaining wisdom that God, for some reason, is keeping from her—or so she thinks. So she takes. She eats. And she gives some to Adam. And though they do not physically die that day, there is a worse death that awaits them. The relationship they enjoyed with God up to that point, a relationship that included walks together, uninterrupted fellowship, and constant provision. They have chosen to try to become like God, to become their own gods, and the irony, of course, is that they already were like God—they were made in God’s own image, and so are we (cf. Sailhamer, “Genesis,” Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 2, pg. 51). A bit later in the passage, we’re even told they are now afraid of this God who at one time cared for them tenderly. They was never supposed to be that kind of fear in the relationship (Goldingay 49). But now, that’s just more evidence that what is broken cannot be repaired. It will never be the same.

I have a chalice collection at home; it’s another one of my sicknesses, but I have communion chalices from all around the world, and some that have come from dear friends. This one was a gift from the church where I got to practice being a pastor during my internship at Asbury Seminary. Harrodsburg United Methodist Church in Kentucky let me be an unpaid associate pastor for two years, and I am forever grateful to them for that. When I graduated and we prepared to move back to Indiana, they gave me this chalice as a gift, and I have treasured it ever since. So imagine how devastated I was when, nearly twenty years ago, the chalice fell over and broke into several pieces. I gathered up all the pieces I could find and carefully glued them back together, but the next time I went to put grape juice in it, I discovered all the small, tiny cracks that were still present as grape juice seeped out. The chalice looks good on the outside, but it is broken—just like Adam and Eve were on this particular day, and just like the human race has been ever since. Just like you and me. Because of a twisted lie, because Eve believed she could be like God, because our earliest ancestors gave into temptation, we still today are like this chalice—beautiful but broken.

The results of this moment, this temptation, have been devastating to the human race. As Christians, we believe that every broken piece of this world can be traced back to this moment, when we decided that we could be God, that we alone would decide what is good and what is evil. One author put it this way: “The difference between God and us is that God never thinks he is us” (Goldingay 48). And the one time God became like us was so that he could answer and forever solve the problem that was created here in Eden. In another garden, separated from Eden by thousands of years and hundreds of miles, God made flesh prayed for strength to overcome the temptation to turn away from the cross. In Gethsemane, Jesus fought the same temptation Eve faced in Eden: to follow his own plan instead of the Father’s. It was a night of struggle and prayer and when it was over, Jesus never turned away from the horrific punishment awaiting him on Calvary. In Mel Gibson’s film The Passion of the Christ, after the time of prayer, there is an image taken directly from Genesis as Jesus, leaving the garden, steps on and kills a serpent. God had promised here in the beginning that, eventually, Eve’s offspring would crush the serpent’s head (3:15). And when Jesus returns, all sin and temptation will be dealt with forever.

But until that day, we continue to struggle. Oscar Wilde was right: “I can resist everything except temptation.” Today, the temptation to go our own way, to be like God, to determine our own way and to be the one who determines what is good and what is evil—that temptation is strong. We’ve become a culture that believes it’s only wrong if you think it’s wrong, or if it somehow harms someone else. Even then, we mark that up to a bad choice, not evil or even temptation. Sometimes today, the temptations are subtle. We want a bigger house, more money, more gadgets, power, status and so on. We are tempted to possess those things that will make us feel important, or even make us feel as if we no longer need God. God will do in a pinch, or in a crisis, but most of the week, we like to feel like we can do it all on our own. For most people, even those who claim the name of Christ, prayer is something that only happens when there is a need, a crisis, something we need gotten out of. Other times, the temptations are more blatant, and they often result in addictions: sexual addiction and pornography, alcoholism, drug addiction, gambling addiction, and so on—sadly the list could go on and on. In June, the New York Times wrote about the current drug addiction epidemic. Despite three and a half decades of “Just Say No,” drug overdose deaths hit their highest yet in 2016, an estimate of at least 59,000, far outpacing the high points of traffic accident deaths and HIV-AIDS-related deaths. Drug overdoses are now the leading cause of death among Americans under 50. And that’s just one area where temptation has led to addiction which has led to death—in this case, physical as well as spiritual death—just as promised way back in the book of Genesis.

So how do we deal with temptation? One of the most obvious yet least used strategies for dealing with the call of the serpent is to not put yourself in a place where temptation can come at you. Let’s be honest: we know what our own temptations are toward sin, and we know the situations in which we hear that siren call. We pretend we can handle it when we know we can’t, and it’s up to us to make the choice that our relationship with God is more important than what the serpent offers us. A gambling addict cannot go for dinner in a casino or even just buy one single lottery ticket. An alcoholic cannot hang out where alcohol is freely available. And it’s not enough for someone who is addicted to pornography to just stay out of adult book stores. In today’s world, porn is more available than ever; you don’t have to try very hard to find it. Sometimes, maybe even more drastic action is required, as was dramatized in the film Fireproof. Take a listen.

VIDEO: Fireproof - Temptation

Well, that might be a bit drastic. Or it may not be. (At least that wasn’t a Mac he trashed!) Another option in that particular scenario would be to install software filters, and then let someone else set the password, one that you don’t know. Cathy and I both have access to each other’s phones; we have stored our finger prints in each other’s phones for the TouchID sensor, but in the past, we also shared each other’s passwords. We have shared accounts so there is nothing we can’t see of each other’s internet use. The bigger point is this: don’t place yourself in temptation. You know, we pray every month when we have communion, “Lead us not into temptation,” but for a lot of us, praying that is pointless because we’re pretty good at finding it all by ourselves! Don’t put yourself in a place where you know you will be tempted; that starts with knowing your own weaknesses. Know the places in your life where temptation is strong, and don’t be angry that someone else isn’t tempted in that way. A friend of yours might be able to have one drink and be okay, but you know that if you have one drink it will lead to another, then to another, and so on. In the places you are weak, put protections in place. And, by the way, if you are the friend who can have a drink but you’re with the one who can’t, then your Christian obligation is to abstain. Paul says (cf. Romans 14) we are not to do things that will cause others to stumble or be tempted. Just because we can endure that temptation doesn’t mean someone else can, and we should always be sensitive to our brother or sister. In fact, Paul says it this way: “It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother or sister to fall” (Romans 14:22). Today, that includes, I believe, the things we post on social media and how those posts represent us as believers in and followers of Jesus. Are we participating in someone else’s temptation or causing them to stumble by the posts we make?

A second piece in resisting temptation is to do the opposite of what Adam and Eve did. They ran from God; they hid from God. We need to run to God, because (again) as Genesis teaches, he is the only one who is able to really set the standards for good and evil. We may not always like God’s laws and rules, but since he is the creator, he is really the only one who is allowed to set those rules. So we run to him, and accept his guidance, direction, rules for our lives. We live in a world where that’s not popular, where to live by God’s word is frowned upon, looked down upon. But I’m here to tell you this: in my experience, every time I face temptation, when I turn back to the one who loves me more than anything else, I find lasting hope and healing and joy that no temptation and no sin can ever provide. The temptation brings only heartbreak; God’s presence brings healing. Some people, when they are struggling with temptation, turn away from God and from the church at exactly the time they need those the most.

And that leads me to the third piece we need for dealing with temptation: accountability. You need friends in your life, godly Christian friends, who will ask you the hard questions and hold your feet to the fire. One way that can happen is through the ministry of Celebrate Recovery, our addictions ministry which is aimed at those with hurts, habits, and hang-ups—which is pretty much all of us! The key piece of the ministry of Celebrate is accountability. It’s not about getting together just for fun; it’s about being together in small groups and in worship because together, we’re better, we’re stronger, we’re able to stand against temptation. That sort of accountability can also happen in LifeGroups, as individuals grow together, share life, and come to know each other well. That’s one reason I implore you to be part of a small group, whether it’s a LifeGroup or a Celebrate group or a community group. One of my goals as your pastor is to get to the place where everyone in the church is connected to a small group of some sort. We all need to be part of a group where they will ask us the hard questions and encourage us to find real life in Christ. The Christian faith was not meant to be lived alone; we’re called to community because only in community do we find help and hope to overcome the temptations when they come at us.

Jesus himself founded a small group. The disciples were together to be trained under his leadership, to be certain, but their life together was also meant as a model for ours. And on the last night Jesus was with them, he gave them a meal, an act, something that would define them and hold them together. We still practice that meal, that act today; Christians do all around the world. Wherever you go, sharing the bread and the cup reminds us that we are part of each other. The bread and the cup remind us of Jesus’ triumph over all the temptations and all the sins in the world in that garden called Gethsemane. By the way, do you know why we use grape juice instead of wine when we share in Holy Communion? It’s because Methodists were involved from early on in the recovery moment. Following the example of our founder, John Wesley, Methodists have always been about doing all we can to bring hope and healing to people’s lives, including to the lives of addicts, through the grace of Jesus Christ. So there was a movement against using wine because they recognized that even that small amount of wine could be detrimental to an alcoholic’s recovery. In many churches, the communion stewards would make grape juice the day before or even hours before, but there was no way of preserving it, making communion difficult when grapes were out of season. One man who became a communion steward at what is now First United Methodist Church in Vineland, New Jersey, decided he was going to find a way to provide sacramental unfermented wine to the church. Always interested in science, this man began to experiment with Louis Pasteur’s techniques and in his home kitchen he developed a process for stable pasteurized grape juice. He marketed it as “Dr. Welch’s Unfermented Wine,” and after some time of struggle, the movement caught on (umc.org). The reason we use grape juice instead of wine is because Thomas Welch had a vision for ministry to alcoholics, to not put a stumbling block in front of them, and to help them overcome the temptation that even this simple act presented. And because of him, still to this day, when we gather at the Lord’s Table, we can honestly say, all are welcome here.

Don’t put yourself next to the serpent, run to God and not away from him, and make sure there are people holding you accountable—that is that path away from temptation and toward the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ. With that in mind, then, let’s prepare our hearts to come to the Lord’s Table this morning.