Pastor Dan’s Drift ...                             March 2010

. . . then the LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being. And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed. . . . The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. Genesis 2:7-8,15

                                                            A familiar story, no doubt. We have often heard it or about it–the story of “The Fall.” Remembered every Ash Wednesday, it inspires that black gritty cross on our foreheads: “remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Yet, “The Fall” often overshadows the relational, joy-filled experience of Adam and Eve fully in relationship with God, and fully knowing their purpose–to till and keep the garden. Yet, not only the garden, as we might compartmentalize the story, but tilling and keeping all the relationships therein formed: an organic whole.

The Hebrew words translated “till and keep” are “abad”and “shamar.” A more complete translation suggests the understanding of “serve and protect/preserve.” Again, this servant-nurturing would include all with whom Adam is in relationship; God, the animals, the ground (out of which Adam is formed) and its fruit, Eve, and even the serpent.

Humans, as God has created us, are gifted with the responsibility to nurture life. Sadly, as this creation story reveals, Adams and Eves have the ability to destroy it all, to attempt to take over control and ownership of that which God owns. When God’s creatures fall to this temptation, God becomes less and less important as we more and more fall captive to our own desires. This devaluing affects the animals, the ground and its fruit, and other humans. Their and God’s value rest in what we can get out of them.

Our kind has perverted God’s order by turning God and the garden into servants while we serve other gods, particularly one of which Jesus threw back at Satan in this past Sunday’s Gospel reading: the “glory” of, and “authority” over “the kingdoms of the world” (Luke 4:5-6). And revel in this glory and authority, this wealth and power, too many of us do, using them to justify why we have the power to abuse and consume gardens, animals, ground and fruit, humans, and gods. And all too many have the audacity to proclaim that the One and only True God blesses this industriousness.

Jesus opposed this perversion to the very last drop of his life-blood. The world’s glory and authority around him despised, rejected, and killed him. Still does; even though he and his message was raised to new life, never to be conquered. There are followers, many more followers, of the world’s way and Jesus’ way. There are many who seek to till and keep. There are many who seek to consume. There are many caught between–where most of us probably are or delude ourselves into such thinking. That God still has compassion is hard to imagine. That we fall from grace is not. Both merge in the Gospel.

The baptized live in this tension, marked with the cross of Christ yet shying away from the pain and new life it births. It is a tough place to be when one understands the destructiveness in which we collaborate, and feel helpless to put a dent in it. But God continues to lift folks out of the dust and empowers and implores them to “till and keep,” “to serve and protect/preserve.”

Lord! May it be the way of we who in gladness see and be. Amen.

Pastor Dan                                                                                                  See all you in worship!