Red Rock News Feb 21, 2025
- Rev. Dona Johnson |February 16, 2025
After God had provided a harmonious and beautiful paradise, a perfect habitat with unlimited resources, a place where there was no greed or fierce competition, a place where predators and prey laid next to each other in peace, the first couple God created began to take for granted what God had so graciously provided them (Gen 3). God had been more than generous and gave Adam and Eve the entire garden to dwell and thrive in with the exception one tree – one tree. Everything was humming along until a serpent entered the garden. The serpent raised enough doubt in the mind of Eve that it lured not only her but her husband away from God. At that precise moment, she made the choice to take from the tree what God had strictly forbidden. So in essence it was human choice that brought death in all its forms into the world.
How many of us have given into our thoughts and doubts? Henry Cloud, a well-known Christian psychologist states, “Thoughts come and go. Your mind is like a nest where birds, our thoughts come and go but don’t have to roost. We can control (choose) whether we stay with them and turn them into belief.” So, people, much like Eve allow negative thoughts to lure them away from God, lure them away from His Church and lure them away from each other.
God gave the first couple the free will to choose. Without the free will to choose obedience is not obedience. It is forced and coerced. Without the free will to love, then love is also forced, superficial and not genuine. For anyone who has tried to make someone love them knows very well it is almost impossible and eventually leads to resentment and heartache.
Now if you think this is one of many creation stories written long ago in a far-off place called Eden, you’re wrong! The author of Genesis 3 wants us to know what happened in Eden is still happening today generation after generation. God gives human beings a choice to make. As Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann writes, Genesis 3 is a summons, God’s is calling his creatures to live in his world under his terms.
He sets the boundaries. But the human predicament has always been we want to live in God’s world on our terms. We want to determine our own destiny. But what many of us get wrong is that human creatures were put in the garden (world) not to own it, but to manage it, tend it, cultivate it and shepherd it so it can reach its fulfillment, reach its full potential and redemption in the consummation of Jesus Christ.
God gave the first human couple everything imaginable. The moment Eve bit into the forbidden fruit greed, envy, shame, guilt and selfishness entered the human heart and all of creation. At the very heart of our sin and human condition lie our choices: We choose who we belong to, who we worship and who we serve. We choose how to live – either in intimacy with our Creator or in isolation and alienation. God gives every human creature that choice. Out of divine love for his creation, a love that is eternally authentic, trustworthy, and constant, God gives every human being the freedom to choose. The destiny of the human creature writes Brueggemann is to live in God’s world, and not a world of his or her own making. “The human creation is to live with God’s other creatures, some of which are dangerous, but all of which are ruled and cared for.”
Genesis 3 is not so much about evil then it is about our choices. God calls us to discern the reality of who we are, our true purpose in this life and to seek an answer to the question, why am I here? It is a divine call to take a serious look at how we relate to God and how we relate to each other. God also calls us to take a deeper look at the quality of our relationships and to make the right choices in “all” of life. All of which has its source in the Garden of Life. Every human being, every creature is a gift. A gift we are called to tend, mend and shepherd until all of us with God’s help reach our full potential and our God-give destiny.
As we look out at the world around us, at times it seems overwhelmingly hopeless. However God’s powerful resolve to have his way with his creation is always present. Through his Son, Jesus Christ God overcomes and forgives the alienation we continue to create. He redeems us daily through his inexhaustible grace!
- Rev. Dona Johnson |February 16, 2025