Adam: First Farmer

Scripture: Genesis: 2:15-17

Genesis 2:15–17 NIV

15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”

Genesis 3:1–7 NIV

1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” 2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’ ” 4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 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. 7 Then 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.

1/7/2024

Order of Service:

Announcements

Opening Worship

Jeremy Sharing about Emmaus

Prayer Requests

Prayer Song

Pastoral Prayer

Kid’s Time

Offering (Doxology and Offering Prayer)

Scripture Reading

Sermon

Communion

Closing Song

Benediction

Special Notes:

Week 1: Communion

also: Jeremy sharing about Emmuas

Opening Prayer:

Heavenly Father, we gather today to share our awe and wonder of the world You created. We are grateful that You made everything so good and that You work all things for the good of those who love You. Send Your Spirit to speak to us today and remake us in Your image as we worship you together. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Adam: First Farmer

What beginnings tell us...

Beginnings are important in life, not just because you don’t get to experience anything else without them. Beginnings of stories set the tone, pace, and some of the significant questions that we expect to find answers to later. History is full of beginnings. Some things have multiple beginnings as their purposes change over time.

For example, the Post-it Note. The Post-it Note was developed by the 3M employee Spencer Silver in the late 1960s. Silver attempted to create a strong adhesive but failed. Instead of a strong adhesive, he invented an adhesive that was so weak it could be easily removed without leaving residue. Silver did not have a clear purpose for it, and it was not used for several years. Then, one day, another 3M employee, Art Fry, attended one of Silver's seminars and saw the potential for using the weak adhesive. What did Fry use it for? He used it to create bookmarks for his church hymnal.

Every Wednesday night, while practicing with his church choir, he would use little scraps of paper to mark the hymns they would sing in the upcoming service. By Sunday, he’d find they’d all fallen out of the hymnal. He needed a bookmark that would stick to the paper without damaging the pages. This realization led to developing the Post-it Note as a versatile and widely used office product.

Silver is credited with inventing the adhesive, and Fry gets the credit for finding its application. Our modern-day Post-it Notes would only exist with both of these men and their contributions. Things can exist without purpose, but they are quickly forgotten and certainly not celebrated.

In church, we share the primary purpose of having and growing our relationship with God. In the Bible, that relationship is called a “covenant.” We divide the Bible into two large sections, the Old and New Testament, reflecting the Old and New covenants humanity has had with God. The New covenant we have in Jesus does more than replace the old covenant, though. Instead, it completes it. The old and new covenants are two parts of one growing relationship with God, so we must understand both. Like the Post-it Note creators, you don’t get to the finished product without both the creation and the correct application.

So, what was our original purpose in Creation? Our original purpose was to serve God by tending His creation.

Created Good

The story of Eden sets the stage for the entire Hebrew Bible. In the beginning, God created everything... and God created everything good. No, not just good. Very good. Each piece of creation was good, but when God finished with humanity, both male and female, made in His image, God looked at the whole work together and declared it very good. It was so good that He decided the work was done and that He deserved a day off.

The difference between a passing grade of “good” and an A-plus grade of “very good” has everything to do with the connections or relationships within creation. The sun, moon, and stars shined brightly around plants, fish, birds, other animals, and even people. God could have created everything and tossed it together like a child’s toy chest: a big, brilliant, jumbled mess. But God did not do that. He created each part of creation to exist in a special relationship with every other part. He made the sun, moon, and stars to give the earth light and help the plants grow. Those plants provided shelter and food for the animals. And the last creation of all, man and woman, was the connection between God and His creation, made to keep everything tended and growing well. The concept of perfection in creation has always meant harmony. There are no solos in God’s perfect kingdom. Only choirs. And those choirs are not complete until everyone is singing (with their voices, their hands, their instruments, or by whatever means they have to praise God), and following God’s lead, the one who writes the music and conducts everyone together.

The challenge of perfect relationships is that they must be maintained. There is a part of us that understands this intuitively and deeply, even if we do not have words for it. We know we have relationship-defining moments with God, the beginnings of covenants we make with Him, where everything is finally set right. The sinner on their knees confessing their sins is made perfect in God’s eyes. And then they get up. We get up from our makeshift altar and return to our business, and temptation meets us two steps away. The blessing of our freedom to have a voice and choice means that we can turn away from God, his plans, and his perfect song and return to singing our own solos any day, anytime. The cost of freedom is responsibility.

The creation accounts of chapters one and two are so fantastic that it seems impossible to communicate them in words fully. More than light from darkness and life from nothing, God created and wove together an entire world in perfect harmony. And then that goodness was unraveled with one short conversation and two bites of fruit.

When the serpent came and spoke to Eve, it appealed to her desire and questioned the very order of creation. There was no discussion about what would be best for God or the garden as a whole. There was no thought as to what might happen if the ones who were the glue, holding creation together at the seams, decided to pull apart and go off on their own.

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The Fall

Adam and Eve used their freedom to follow temptation instead of God, and there were consequences. In essence, they were only given two commands to live by:

Tend the Garden for (and with) God.

Do not eat fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

It should not have been that hard. And while talking to the serpent led them eventually down a wrong path, it was not the question that was sin itself. God did not forbid them from wondering what might happen if they disobeyed Him. It was the act itself, and the consequences were dire for Adam and Eve and all of creation.

We have probably questioned the third chapter of Genesis more than any other passage in scripture, and most of the time, we settle around the particular question of whose fault this was: Man, Woman, the serpent, or God who created it all.

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That question sounds logical when we come to the scripture as individuals looking to diagnose and fix a broken system. In our throwaway culture, we see problems, look for what to throw out, and how to find something better to replace it with. That might work with our tools sometimes, but it does not work with relationships. When we look to place blame among relationships, just like Adam and Eve, we look everywhere but ourselves, and we do that because we are afraid we might find ourselves at fault. We are the one thing we cannot throw away and replace.

When Adam and Eve broke their covenant relationship with God, they were not thrown away, but they were cut off from the “very good” relationship they had with the rest of creation. They were never capable of tending the garden on their own, so they were removed from it and given the opportunity to start their own garden. As they were not God, it would not work, but God gave them some basic provisions and allowed them the chance to try.

God closed the door behind them and kept them from coming back to Eden in part to protect the garden from their corrupted influence, but even more to protect them from suffering the eternal effects of eternal life stuck in sin and death. We can live a long time as broken people harming others all around us. For us, death is grace, a release from that curse of sin, both in our lives and those around us. Just as there was a beginning of the broken world and fallen humanity, there has always been an end to it... and a new beginning waiting in the wings.

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Starting New

Jesus is our new beginning. When the people asked Him what this new covenant with God would be like, Jesus told them:

“ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” - Matthew 22:37-40

Within these two commands, Jesus gave us a reflection and perhaps a reframing of the covenant of Eden: Tending to God’s creation for and with Him. Jesus allows us to begin that relationship over again, maybe this time a little wiser than before. We can look back on our lives, recognizing that we don’t deserve an A-plus for all of it, and make decisions to do a little differently, perhaps a little better this time.

Our scripture today is not written as philosophy or complex science reports. It is written as a narrative account of individual people in individual places - which is why we find it easy to relate to ourselves. The serpent may not be named here, but we know his names in our lives. We know him through the people, places, and things that have led us away from God. We are not going to solve the problem of evil in the world. That’s God’s job, not ours.

Instead, we will focus on precisely what this passage tells us to do. We will focus on caring for the garden that God has given us and how to tend it for and with Him. God did not create you to be responsible for the entire world. But He has given you a part of it, and He has asked You to love Him with all you have in that garden He has placed you and to love those who tend gardens next to yours, just as if they were your own.

As we move into our time in Holy Communion with God and each other, let's turn our focus away from temptation and return it to God, tuning our voices to His voice instead of trying to sing perfectly on our own. We will find the new covenant relationship that Jesus calls us to, which finally fulfills the covenant relationship God created for us from the beginning.

Communion – The Great Thanksgiving II

Tony:

Christ our Lord invites to his table all who love him,

who earnestly repent of their sin

and seek to live in peace with one another.

Therefore, let us confess our sin before God and one another.

Merciful God,

we confess that we have not loved you with our whole heart.

We have failed to be an obedient church.

We have not done your will,

we have broken your law,

we have rebelled against your love,

we have not loved our neighbors,

and we have not heard the cry of the needy.

Forgive us, we pray.

Free us for joyful obedience

through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Hear the good news:

Christ died for us while we were yet sinners;

that proves God's love towards us.

In the name of Jesus Christ, you are forgiven!

In the name of Jesus Christ, you are forgiven!

Glory to God. Amen.

Bekah:

The Lord be with you

And also with you.

Lift up your hearts.

We lift them up to the Lord.

Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.

It is right to give our thanks and praise.

It is right and a good and joyful thing,

Always and everywhere to give thanks to you, Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth.

And so,

With your people on earth

And all the company of heaven

We praise your name and join their unending hymn:

Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might, Heaven and earth are full of your glory.

Hosanna in the highest.

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

Hosanna in the highest.

Holy are you, and blessed is your Son, Jesus Christ. By the baptism of his suffering, death, and resurrection

you gave birth to your church,

delivered us from slavery to sin and death and made with us a new covenant

by water and the Spirit.

On the night to which he gave himself up for us

he took bread, gave thanks to you, broke the bread,

gave it to his disciples and said,

“Take, eat; this is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”

When the supper was over, he took the cup,

gave thanks to you, gave it to his disciples, and said:

“Drink from this, all of you.

This is my blood of the new covenant, poured out for you and for many

for the forgiveness of sins. Do this as often as you drink it,

in remembrance of me.”

And so,

In remembrance of these Your mighty acts in Jesus Christ, we offer ourselves in praise and thanksgiving,

as a holy and living sacrifice,

in union with Christ’s offering for us as we proclaim the mystery of faith.

Christ has died; Christ is risen; Christ will come again.

Tony:

Pour out your Holy Spirit on us gathered here,

and on these gifts of bread and wine.

Make them be for us the body and blood of Christ, that we may be for the world the body of Christ,

redeemed by his blood.”

By your Spirit, make us one with Christ, one with each other,

and one in ministry to all the world,

until Christ comes in final victory,

and we feast at his heavenly banquet.

Through your Son Jesus Christ,

with the Holy Spirit in your holy church,

all honor and glory is Yours, almighty Father,

now and forever.

Amen

The body of Christ, given for you. Amen.

The blood of Christ, given for you. Amen.

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