The Wrong Voice

Genesis 2:8-17

April 7, 2024 • Mount Pleasant UMC

The baseball diamond in my childhood backyard was interrupted by three trees. Not really convenient for a good game, but we did turn two of them into home and second base. The middle tree was approximately where the pitcher would stand. The one we used as home base was also good for climbing. It had limbs in just the right places for a young boy to be able to get up high enough to see onto (and maybe even climb onto) the roof of the garage. In the fall, I would often find myself climbing other trees. My Aunt Thelma and Uncle Lee had a small collection of apple trees and we would go there every fall to pick apples. I have no memory of what kind of apples they were, but they got turned into homemade applesauce and apple butter that we enjoyed all winter long. I can still taste it when I think about it. I didn’t mind the work of picking the apples because I knew the good that was coming.

My least favorite encounter with trees when I was growing up was on those Saturday mornings when Dad would announce, “We’re going over to Uncle Ned’s to cut firewood today!” I hated cutting firewood, but I knew that if we didn’t, we would be cold all winter because we heated our home primarily with a wood stove. I still bear the marks of one of those mornings, though. I have a scar that, thankfully has faded over the years, from a time when I wasn’t watching, leaned down to pick something up and inadvertently put my head in the path of a log being tossed back to the truck. It was a lot of fun going to high school on Monday with my head bandaged and having to explain how it happened. Those trees I didn’t like all that much.

So today we begin a new sermon series called “Sticks,” and when Cathy saw that on the upcoming list, she said, “What is this? Sticks?” Yes, sticks. As in trees. And, no, when this series was planned for these weeks, I did not know that the Sycamores would be playing in the NIT. So this series is not about that, but we are going to be looking at some of the trees mentioned in the Bible. Believe it or not, trees play an important role in the story of Scripture. They’re all over the place, but I bet you’ve never paid much attention to them. But they are there. Author Matthew Sleeth puts it this way: “Other than God and people, the Bible mentions trees more than any other living thing. There is a tree on the first page of Genesis, in the first psalm, on the first page of the New Testament, and on the last page of Revelation.” Trees are very often places of decision-making, and Sleeth goes on to make this claim: “Every significant theological event in the Bible is marked by a tree” (qtd. in Armstrong, Sticks, pg. 1). And so as we look at these trees in Scripture, we’re going to also be looking for the ways God uses them to point us toward making good decisions, decisions that honor him, because I’m willing to bet you have some decisions in your life right now that you’re trying to make. Some are easier than others and some feel like an impossible choice. Maybe you need to spend some time near a tree, maybe one of these Biblical trees. And the very first trees were there when the most challenging decision in history was made, because it was made at a tree called “The Knowledge of Good and Evil.”

So, I know different Christians have different opinions about whether or not these early chapters of Genesis are actual history or parables. I mean, no one who was there at the beginning actually wrote down what happened. By the time this is all written down, the stories had been repeated for generations. That’s part of why we actually have two different accounts of creation in Genesis 1 and 2, and why they vary in the way they say it happened. The order of things is different, and the style of the stories is different. Personally, I’m of the belief that these stories do represent history generally, but that the point of these stories is not historical like we think of it—names, dates, and so on. The point of these stories is to tell us that God created, to affirm loudly that God made it all. And therefore, these stories say to us, God gets to determine the best way life is to be lived.

So with that said, we’re told that after creating everything, including humanity in the form of Adam and Eve (though Eve doesn’t get a name until way into chapter 3), God “planted a garden” (2:8). Not green beans, cucumbers and strawberries, though those things might have been there. No, what the author means is that in the midst of an unspoiled world, God made a special place for his children to live. “Eden,” which the place is called, means “luxury” or “delight” (Goldingay, Genesis for Everyone—Part One, pg. 34), and when you read the description of the place, it certainly sounds delightful and luxurious. Four rivers, gold, aromatic resin, onyx (2:10-14). It’s a place we’d all like to live, right? Then God takes Adam specifically and puts him in the garden where he is expected to “work it and take care of it” (2:15). So, as John Goldingay says, it seems we were made to be gardeners, that it’s one part of us being made in God’s image (34). But there’s one restriction. God tells Adam he is not to eat anything that comes from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. You can eat anything else in the whole garden, in the whole world for that matter. Just stay away from that one tree (2:16-17).

I’ve had people tell me they have issues with this story. Specifically, why did God even put that tree there? Wouldn’t it have been better just to leave that tree out of creation? Why even put the possibility in front of Adam? Well, far be it for me to answer for God, but the Bible does tell us that he allows us to be tested (cf. 1 Corinthians 10:13; book of Job). The bottom line is that God loves us and wants us to love him back. But he won’t test us beyond our ability to respond successfully. And he will not force us to love him. He wants to choose to love him. And so this tree in the garden represents the choice Adam now has. Will he love God enough to do as he says, or will he do the one thing he has been told not to do?

I mean, the choice seems pretty straightforward. Eat from any tree except that one. Hundreds, thousands, millions of trees to choose from that he can eat from, and only one he can’t. And God even tells Adam the consequences up front. If you eat from that one tree, “you will certainly die” (2:17). Death will be a part of your existence. And despite all the rest of the trees, there is one right next to the forbidden trees, the tree of life (2:9), and if Adam eats from that, he will live. “The Tree of Life would provide a forever future in God’s goodness and wisdom” (Armstrong 15). Life. Or death. Your choice, Adam. I don’t think it’s any mistake that right after God puts this choice in front of Adam, he then says, “It is not good for the man to be alone” (2:18). That’s then God creates Eve, because men, we need help. God knew that from the beginning. Eve is even called a “helper” (2:20).

However, things don’t go the way God hopes. In fact, Adam’s helper is the one who speeds up the process of humanity rebelling against God; we’ll never know what might have been. The story continues tragically, as a serpent enters the picture, a talking serpent, and he lies to Eve about the consequences of eating from the tree. But, in fairness, Eve adds to God’s original instructions as well. God did tell them not to eat from the tree, but Eve says God told them not to even touch it (3:2). God did not tell Adam that, and I’m sure the serpent knows that. He also knows when we add on to God’s word or twist it into something it was never intended to say. Nevertheless, Eve and Adam believe the serpent’s lies more than they believe what God actually said. Maybe the addition Eve made to God’s instructions made her feel safer somehow, like she wouldn’t break God’s rule if she first didn’t break her own. But it certainly made it easier for her to distance herself from God’s wisdom or even from God himself. By adding to God’s instructions, Eve becomes her own boss, rather than listening to God’s voice. I don’t know, but I do know that Genesis says the serpent’s words made Eve see the fruit of this tree in a different light. “When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it” (3:3). They failed the test and the relationship between God and humanity was broken, all because at the tree they chose to listen to the wrong voice.

Yes, yes, we know. They listened to the tempter’s voice. Don’t have anything to do with talking serpents because they lie. Got it. But that’s not the only “wrong voice” Adam and Eve listened to in this story. This story is not just about not listening to the serpent because no matter what the serpent said, these two first humans still had a choice. They still had, in their hearts and minds, pretty clear instructions from God. What happens at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is that Eve and Adam choose to listen to their own voice. They chose to trust their own decision making and their own intuition rather than trust that what God had told them was for the best. “The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil represents autonomy, doing life on your own” (Armstrong 19). And, for a bit, it seems that their choice paid off. They didn’t die. At least not physically. Not yet. But there are things that did die immediately. For one, their trust in and innocence with each other dies. As soon as they eat the fruit, Genesis says, “The eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves” (3:7). This had never been a problem before. Until they ate the fruit, they were completely comfortable with each other. They trusted each other. Now, having listened to their own voice, they suddenly see the other person as a…I don’t know, a threat? Less trustworthy? An “other”? Relational death happens when they listen to the wrong voice.

And a spiritual death happens as well. The next verse tells us how the two of them heard God walking in the garden. I’ve often wondered what it sounds like when God walks in a garden. What did they hear? Whatever it sounded like, they knew it was God. The text seems to imply that walking together in the garden was something they did on a regular basis. It certainly indicates that Adam and Eve had a close and unhindered relationship with God before this moment. They talked freely and openly and spent time together. But now, God comes looking for them. And it’s not that God doesn't know where they are or even what has happened. But he still asks questions. Lots of questions. According to educators, asking questions is the best way to get children to figure out and admit their mistakes. Questions help them own what they have done, and you could say that Adam and Eve, at whatever age they were created, are moral children at this point. Bible teacher Kat Armstrong describes it this way: “There’s a graciousness in asking questions. God does not yell. He does not point fingers. He does not explode with anger or denigrate Adam and Eve’s reach for wisdom. He asks hard questions” (22). And he gives them every opportunity to confess, to repent and offer to change. But they do not take him up on it. Instead, they make excuses and blame each other. Which hits a little close to home, if I’m honest, because we still do the same the same thing. We mess up and we begin looking for someone to blame. What we are terrible at doing is admitting that we’ve simply listened to the wrong voice—our own—and we’ve eaten from the wrong tree.

So when we are making big decisions, possibly life-altering decisions, we first need to make sure we’re listening to the right voice, and the only truly “right voice” for the believer in Jesus is God’s voice. The problem is, and you know this, but the challenge is that God speaks in a “still, small voice” (cf. 1 Kings 19:12) and the world’s voice (and the tempting voice of the modern-day serpents) is just so loud and sometimes feels overpowering. So how do we learn to listen to that gentle whisper that is the voice of God?

Three things, very quickly. First is prayer. You can’t listen to someone you aren’t in communication with, and prayer is the way we communicate with the creator of the universe. We’ve done a whole sermon series on just listening through prayer, but let me sort of sum it up this way. We spend far too much time in prayer asking for things. Or at least I do. I spend far too much time in prayer asking for things, asking God to do this or that or give me that or this. I specialize in telling God how to do things. That’s not good communication, and I should know that. I have a college degree in communication! I’m not saying we can’t or should’t ask for what we want; Jesus clearly tells us we can do that. But that’s not all prayer should be. Prayer is first and foremost about spending time with God, walking in the garden with him as it were. It’s just hanging out in his presence, learning what he is like and, yes, learning to hear his voice. I’ve never heard an audible voice from God during those times, but I have had very strong impressions that, usually, show themselves to be God’s voice to me. So we listen in prayer.

And then we test what we’ve heard a couple of ways. First, we check it out through the community of faith. Here’s one way I’ve experienced that. In our tradition, those who believe they are called into pastoral ministry have a whole process they have to go through before they are entrusted with leadership in a church, and part of that process is having people from their faith community who can say, “Yes, that person is called. We see in him or her God-given gifts and abilities that will benefit the larger church.” If someone believes they are called but there is no affirmation from the community of faith, they are probably listening to the wrong voice—their own. In the same way, before we launch a new ministry or a new program here, we sift through it at the staff table, believing that if God has called us to move in that direction, he will confirm it through the community.

But the most important way we test what we’ve heard is by putting it alongside the Scriptures. There’s a reason we call the Bible God’s Word—because so much of what he wants to tell us is already there. It’s been written down for centuries. Is it sometimes hard to understand? Yes, but I’ve always appreciated what Mark Twain said about the Scriptures: “It ain't the parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it's the parts that I do understand.” If we spent the time doing and obeying the parts we do understand, we likely wouldn’t have a lot of time left over to worry about the parts we don’t understand. God continues to speak through the Scriptures, and so we need to get to know what is in there if we’re going to truly know what he wants to say to us. Daily reading, discussing it with your small group, asking questions, and even listening to sermons—all of these things can help us know the Bible and enable us to discern the voice of God speaking to us. That’s why we give Bibles to third graders every year through the Bible Explorers class. Ginger goes over what the Bible is and how to read it, how to understand it, and they even spend a session getting to ask me questions, so that when we present them their new Bibles, as we will do today, they will have a head start. I can’t encourage you enough—Bible Explorers as well as the rest of the congregation—to read the Bible regularly. We even give you texts each week you can read if you don’t know where to start. Reading the Bible gives me life (not death) and helps me listen to the right voice.

So the first tree we encounter in Scripture presents us with a choice: whose voice will we listen to? Our own? The voice of the serpent? Or the wise, good and kind voice of our creator God? This morning, this first Sunday after Easter, we’re going to FIRST PRESENT BIBLES TO OUR BIBLE EXPLORERS AND THEY WILL HELP US gather around the table of the Lord and share in Holy Communion, which is something we do because Jesus told us to. Do this, he said, and remember. And when we obey, the Tree of Life tells us, we will receive life and blessing and live long in the land God has given us (cf. Ross, “Genesis,” Cornerstone Biblical Commentary, Vol. 1, pg. 47). So this morning, we WILL come to the table as obedient people, longing to listen to the voice of our savior today and every day.

FIRST: Will you pray with me as we prepare to share in Holy Communion?

SECOND: Now, let’s pray for and encourage our Bible Explorers as they receive their own Bibles and continue their journey in listening for the voice of God.