Life Between The Trees: Eden - Genesis 1-3
To call someone a
tree-hugger is usually meant in a derogatory fashion, much in the same way the
name “Christian” was originally a negative name placed upon those who followed
The Way of Christ, and “Methodist” was a slam on those who, under John Wesley’s
leadership, believed there was a certain way things needed to be done in order
to continue to grow in our walk with God.
The term “tree-hugger” actually began almost 300 years ago in India as
about 366 men and women clung to the trees around their village in an attempt
to keep a group of trees they considered sacred from being cut down to build a
new royal palace.[i] Nowadays the term is applied toward anyone
that is concerned for the environment in such a way that it might cause an
inconvenience to someone’s pocketbook, pleasure, or lifestyle. I’ve had the label placed on me a few times
by those I would consider friends, sometimes in ways that I wasn’t sure if they
were just joking or were truly critical of my concern for the environment. So like I’m okay being called a “Christian”
and being called a “Methodist,” I’m okay with being called a “tree-hugger.”
Before we go any further,
let me make one thing clear. I am not
part of the Global Warming/Climate Change bandwagon. I think much of what goes on within some of
those groups have political and/or economic agendas in place. My concern for the environment has its roots
in a very different place, Genesis: “And God said, ‘Let the water under the sky
be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.’ And it was
so. God called the dry land Earth, and
the waters that were gathered together he called seas. And God saw that it was good. Then God said,
‘Let the earth put forth vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees of
every kind on earth that bear fruit with the seed in it.’ And it was so….And
God saw that it was good…And God said, ‘Let the waters bring forth swarms of
living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the
sky.’…And God saw that it was good…And God said, ‘Let the earth bring forth
living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things and wild animals of
the earth of every kind.’ And it was so…And God saw that it was good…God saw
everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good.”[ii] Later, entering Genesis 2 and the second account
of Creation, we read, “…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…The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it
and keep it.”[iii] My concern for the environment is rooted
simply in the fact that we, as humans, were created and placed on this earth
and given the sole responsibility to tend and keep God’s very good
creation. The Hebrew translated as “keep
it” is “shamar” and is rooted in an
understanding of “guarding, protecting, and preserving.” To use it simply for our own purposes with
disregard for what we are doing to it, including the creatures that live within
it, is to live with disregard for humanity’s role in Creation. Again, I’m okay with being called a
“tree-hugger.”
Today we begin a new
sermon series called “Life Between The Trees.”
You see, the significance of trees to our faith goes far beyond the
first two chapters of Genesis. As
Matthew Sleeth, emergency room physician turned creation preservationist,
pointed out at Annual Conference a year and a half ago, God’s Word begins with
trees and ends with a tree and is full of trees in-between and they all tie to
important aspects with regard to our faith.
From now until Easter we will examine several of the trees of the Bible
and just what their significance is to our lives as followers of Christ who are
also members of God’s Creation. I hope by the end that we all find ourselves
happy to be tree-huggers, for more than one reason.
Today we begin with the
trees of Eden. If you were to ask folks
to name the first tree that comes to mind thinking of a Biblical tree, I am
sure that one or both of these the trees from Eden would be among the “top ten
answers on the board.” In fact, in an
informal survey of my Facebook friends, the two trees of Genesis scored tied
for second and fourth respectively. They
are the Tree of the Knowledge of Good And Evil and the Tree of Life. These two trees become the basis for
everything that follows in Scripture.
Genesis 2:9 says, “Out of
the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight
and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”
Later, in verse 16, God says to Adam, “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.” These two trees offer to us that from the
beginning, from the very start of creation, God, in his love for us, gave us
free will, gave us choice. He gave us
the ability to live obediently to Him and enjoy all of Creation in the way He
intended, literally living life to the fullest, or to choose to live life our
own way, charting our own course, dying on our way.
So which way did humanity
choose? We chose to do it our way. We chose death. Given two choices, God’s way or our way, Life
or death, we chose our way.
I can hear someone now,
“But God didn’t strike humanity down when they ate of the forbidden tree, He
just kicked them out of the Garden.”
That’s true, God didn’t strike Adam and Eve down with a lightning
bolt. As much as we joke about that, God
doesn’t work that way—He doesn’t send lightning bolts, hurricanes, tornados, or
any other thing to strike us down where we stand as punishment. Yet, we still received the sentence of death.
From Genesis 3, after the
choice was made and God’s sentences handed out upon man, woman, and servant:
“Then the Lord God said, ‘See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good
and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life,
and eat, and live forever’—therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the
garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man; and at the east of the
garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a sword flaming and turning to guard
the way to the tree of life.”
Adam may not have
immediately died, but death became his end…and can we see what he lost, what we
lost? If we had chosen to forgo the one
tree we were forbidden, we could have chosen to eat of the Tree of Life and lived
in Eden, with no death, no disease, no violence, and spent our evenings walking
and talking and fellowshipping with God face to face. That was God’s desire for us, that was God’s
design for us…and the rest of Scripture, the rest of Life between the Trees, is
God’s work to restore us to that design and bring us back to life under the
Tree of Life. This will be our journey
from now until Easter.
In the Name of the Father
and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
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