How long does a sermon usually last? I don’t mean how long does someone preach for – or how long it feels like someone has preached for – but how long does it linger, how long do you remember it, how long does it last? Perhaps it’s already gone before the preacher says ‘Amen’, or it flits away by the end of the creed. Maybe it makes it all the way back home with you until you put the dinner on…
There’s one sermon which at the time took around 30 minutes to preach but has, so far, lasted over 20 years. It was at the licensing of a Baptist minister with his new congregation, and it was in a school hall because the church was being refurbished. Unlike the Anglican Church, where a licensing usually means the local bishop giving his or her four-penny worth, in this Baptist Church the new minister sets their stall out. Here he was challenging the congregation to assess where they were before God and with each other.
He asked 3 questions, which you might recognise from various parts of the Bible:
- Where are you?
- Where is your brother?
- Who do you say that I am?
I mentioned it to that same minister a few years later. He’d completely forgotten what he’d said that day – probably most of his regular congregation had too – and he looked at me with more than a mild degree of panic in his eyes.
The first conversation
Today we get the first of those questions in our reading from Genesis 3: “Where are you?”
They’re not the first words in the Bible. Those words were used to create things. But it’s the start of the first conversation between God and humans. In the verses before ours the two had eaten of the forbidden fruit and – everything had started to crumble.
Before they were naked and without shame, with nothing to hide and nothing to disagree about. Now the deceived couple find lies and violence and their peaceful world immediately becomes a different place. This first conversation is heavy with confusion and guilt. Those familiar friendly footsteps in the garden now become a potential source of danger and threat and fear.
A great question
“Where are you?” It’s a great question. The ‘you’ is singular not plural. God asks Adam and Eve giving them each the chance to step out and answer. And it’s not a rhetorical question or a closed question but a question which allows for an answer and gives them each back the capacity for speech.
Maybe we should ask our own long-forgotten friends – or family members that we’ve fallen out with – “Where are you?” And give space for those addressed to react, reflect & reply. Perhaps we should each take stock and ask that question of ourselves: “Where are we?” 80-years on from D-Day, where are we now?
Naked
Note that God doesn’t ask where the fruit has gone. For God, it’s all about the man and the woman. And do you notice the timing? They were naked but God waits for them to invent clothing and to figure out how to get dressed. Love is patient, love is kind…
Nakedness is referred to in other parts of the OT. In Isaiah (20) the Israelites are naked as they are taken away into captivity. In Amos (2), the hero runs away naked from the battlefield after being defeated. There is the helplessness of a child in Hosea (2) and the nakedness of a newly born infant in Ecclesiastes (5). Nakedness means being weak and vulnerable and helpless. And, of course, in the NT, God comes to us naked and vulnerable and helpless in the form of the baby Jesus. Ultimately, then, the serpent had been right. We did become like God – or God did become like us.
With the question, God invites Adam and Eve out of hiding – and maybe we think of Simon Peter. Invited out of hiding from the upper room to the Sea of Galilee where on the seashore Jesus gently asks him: “Simon, son of John, do you love me more that these?” What could have been an accusation was again, instead, an invitation.
Verbal fig leaves
Make no mistake, Adam and Eve don’t want to chat. They are ashamed and in hiding. The snake had used plural not singular verbs in his conversation. He’d spoken to them both, not just Eve. Presumably Adam had been there too, just silently watching on, leaving Eve to do all the talking.
When the words do start flowing with God, they hide behind verbal fig leaves. Eve blames the walking, talking serpent whilst Adam blames Eve and blames God for giving him Eve in the first place. Not my fault, mister!
God asks where we are, when, we too, sometimes flee from God. Maybe that’s from shame from what we’ve done, or it might be from fear of what we shall be asked to do or asked to be. I wonder how often we excuse ourselves by blaming someone else, or our parents, or our schooling, or society. Maybe we resist a conversation with God by trying to do all the talking when we pray and not giving the space, the silence, to listen to what God has to say in return.
What are our fig leaves, our evasions? What do we do to avoid being visible and vulnerable? How do we try and stop our doubts and questions being exposed for all to see?
A curse
In this passage we have not only the first conversation but the first curse too. We teach our children not to curse but the first to curse is God! Since it comes from God’s lips there must be some good news there, some form of blessing, if we search for it.
Our verses have the curse on the serpent, and in what follows is the curse on the soil. The curse is not made to the woman and man, but they have to deal with the consequences of what they’ve done. Woman will toil in pregnancy and childbearing. Man will toil with the difficult earth to produce crops all the days of his life until, in the end, he returns to the dust from which he came. The word for human, in Hebrew, is adam. And for soil, it’s adamah. One from, and returning to, the other.
But the next time we see dust it’s in the promise to Abraham: ‘I will make your descendants as the dust of the earth; so that if one can count the dust of the earth, your descendants also can be counted’ (Genesis 13:16)
Dust, once a symbol of sterility and barrenness, now becomes a symbol of fruitfulness. The curse is turned into a blessing. A curse is never the final word. The desert which is home to death and to demons is also the place where God reveals himself to Moses and the Israelites. Whenever we encounter desolation and barrenness in our lives, the Lord’s blessing is never far away.
What will your answer be?
In the meantime, God tailors us with clothing that is more durable than fig-leaves, equips us with his Spirit to face our new realities outside of the garden.
So, back to that question. If you hear God walking nearby today and God asks: “Where are you?” Or should it be: “Where are you?” what will your answer be? Amen
‘Where are you?’ was delivered by Ian Banks at St Margaret’s, Heywood on June 9th 2024. It was based on Genesis 3:8-15
References:
- Radcliffe, T. and Popko, L. (2023). Questioning God. Bloomsbury
- Magonet, J. (1991). A Rabbi’s Bible. SCM
- Knight, D.A. and Levine, A-J. (2011). The Meaning of the Bible. HarperOne