Crafty as a Serpent

The First Sunday of Lent (A) — Genesis 2:15–17, 3:1–7; Matthew 4:1–11
Bethany Lutheran Church, Stony Creek Mills, PA
Faith Lutheran Church, Mount Penn, PA

The LORD God took the human and put it in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. And the LORD God commanded the human, “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 die.”

It’s nice to work in the church again. Teaching last year was fun, and I hope I can do it again. But I’ll need to include congregational work in there as well. Preaching and teaching, singing and worship, sharing each others’ lives, are vital in real life of faith. Having them again, I’m certain I cannot live without them.

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

The church is a gift from God, to sustain and nourish us. That is its purpose, isn’t it? To teach us and carry us in faith? God gave us this wonderful gift. So where did it all go wrong?

This is a warm and friendly place, truly. And I am sad to say, it is unique among churches. Many say they are, but few actually are. But this is a congregation where you feel that the community really does want you here, really does care, even from the first moment.

So why do we struggle? Every church has financial challenges. Sure, some are better off, where can’t afford our own pastor. But give them time. Volunteers are stretched thin, though they won’t say it out loud. Our pews are emptier, and children’s voices don’t ring in our halls like they once did. We look back with longing. We look forward with worry. What can we do to turn things around?

The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.'”

We have options. Some churches draw in people by the hundreds. They have rock bands and video screens. Engaging and dynamic preaching. Going there is as exciting as going to a movie. Except it’s about God, which is even better.

We might not love all their theology. But they do get people in the door. Are we boring people away from life in Christ? Maybe we had ought to be more like them. Maybe that would fill up our seats again.

But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

That might help some try Church, but others used to come, and don’t. Christianity has understandably turned them off. The only real voice out there carries an unhealthy message. We need to reclaim our voice and show people that the abusive Church isn’t the only Church.

I was in the liquor store the other day. (Yes, I have a church story that takes place in the liquor store, just bear with me). I wanted little wine bottles for communion visits. No luck, so I asked for help, and the clerk showed me the large and very obvious section of mini-wine.

Then she asked me, “You said it’s for communion. You mean the Christian thing?” I said I was a pastor, and she pointed at my arm. She was raised in a very conservative community, and learned that tattoos were “against the Bible.” It didn’t stop her from getting one, either. She once had people come in and tell her that if she quit her alcohol-related job and got laser removal surgery, she wouldn’t have to go to hell. She was shocked to learn that other kinds of Christians than them existed.

Now, we know the person next to us doesn’t always believe the same thing we do. Does the world know that? So many people have been hurt by the message of the church. Maybe we could stop that hurtful message.

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate.

I left the liquor store with my little bottles, and I was so proud of myself, because I helped cure this person’s misconceptions. Maybe she’d find her faith again. I did such a good job! And that, friends, THAT, is the way that I think we should fix the church.

Except I’m wrong about that, too. Because if I just tear down the work of other Christians, no matter how wrong they are, that is simply an act of disgust against them. I did nothing to love the woman I encountered, let alone to love those misguided people she’d once met. I did not create. All I did was destroy.

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the LORD God had made.

We identify the serpent of Genesis with the devil, for good reasons. But in the story, he’s just a snake. He’s crafty, cunning, but those aren’t bad things. He’s not malicious, just wise—or at least knowledgeable.

“You won’t certainly die,” he says, and when they eat the fruit, he proves right; they live. But their lives are changed. They are now as knowledgeable, as cunning as the snake, something more like God, relying on themselves to cover their nakedness. They now have the power, and the intelligence, to rely on themselves. And when they do, creation falls apart.

By the end of the chapter, humanity has left the garden. Both equally display God’s image, but they now hold power over each other, man over wife. Children start hurting their parents even in childbirth. The ground is cursed, and people labor to grow food. All can rely on themselves. All can. But it’s very, very difficult.

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished.

In our Gospel, Jesus subjects his body to great strain, fasting himself to the point of death. When tempted to use his power to change creation—turning stones into bread, sending angels into action, upsetting earthly powers, worshipping evil instead of God—he refuses. Instead of relying on himself, on God, he relies simply on his own humanity, struggling, starving in the desert.

The whole Gospel story is strange in this way. Jesus works miracles for others and for God’s glory. But he lives a human life. Finally, he dies, naked and alone, humiliated, painful, a criminal’s death. He could heal his broken body, bring angels to pull him down, command the powers of heaven and earth to destroy the people who hung him there. But instead of relying on himself, he relies on humanity, trusting us even to death.

The LORD God took the human and put it in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.

God trusts us, his people, to love the world. That is the purpose of the Church. Not to perpetuate ourselves, to bring people in the doors. We are to take love out, through the doors, into the world. The Church exists only for the sake of the people who are not part of it, who maybe will never be part of it. We help people know, through both words and actions, that they are loved by the same love that loved the universe into being. God trusts us with this.

And in response, we kill our savior. We did it then, and we do it now. When we feed ourselves with entertainment, turning rocks into bread, instead of loving God’s word. When we gather worldly power, chaining people to religious rules instead of freeing them to live in God’s love. And when we toss Christ off the temple, shattering false teaching to the ground but forgetting to bear up the real love of God like angels. We all sin, we all succumb to temptation. We all, like Eve, like Adam, think we know better.

And Jesus defeats all temptation for us. God trusts us with his life. We can trust our lives to him.

What must we do to save the church, and our lives? None of those things we have heard. We should let those other Christians be themselves, and we should be ourselves, express our own faith for the God we have come to know. And then trust, together, that God has done everything necessary, and has already saved us.

Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked… and the Lord God made garments of skins for the man and for his wife, and clothed them.