Everything Is For Your Benefit.
June 5, 1994
Proper 5 – Year B
Deacon Training – Homiletics Sermon
Lessons: Gen. 3:1-7; 8-21
Psalm 130
Cor. 4:13-18
Mark 2:20-35
This sermon will be a poem with a prologue commentary followed by a conversation between God, Adam and Eve. It is not my intention to rewrite scripture but to prompt our imagination and reflection on God’s Grace and our fall from that Grace. Scripture, of course, speaks loudly and clearly on its own. I am hopeful that this poem will cause us to revisit the scripture with new eyes and ears. For I believe that scripture is not only holy but alive, organic, capable of constant mutation and part of God’s ongoing creative activity. Each time we read scripture, even a story as familiar as The Fall, the words being alive and organic have the capacity to change us in the present and to alter our future views and actions.
“Everything Is For Your Benefit”
Prologue:
Yahweh created them;
Male and Female,
Yahweh created them.
First, last, and always
Yahweh creates.
The God who speaks
And a universe comes into being.
This is the God, who takes an active role in creation,
Forming man from the dust
And creating the highest order, Woman
From the flesh and bone of man.
Yahweh creates, gives life,
Forms community, sets the agenda
“But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil
You are not to eat.”
One rule, one commandment, not ten,
Not even a summary of the law and prophets,
Just one rule.
Obey me, says Yahweh,
Obey me; accept the gifts I have given you;
Obey me; everything is for your benefit.
Our rebellion sets us apart from God,
Distances us from Yahweh, creator;
Puts us in league with death, evil, and destruction.
When God seeks us,
As Yahweh always seeks,
We hide, run away, and hide;
Afraid of intimacy with God,
With Yahweh the creator.
Adam:
I heard the sound of you in the garden
Seeking after us, so I hid, Lord.
I hid from you.
Leave us alone, Yahweh, we are naked.
We now see both good and evil and are afraid
Leave us alone, Yahweh.
No, Lord! Don’t ask!
It wasn’t me, Lord.
It was her.
The woman you created, Lord
It was her, she did it.
She tempted me.
It was her, Lord.
It was not me, Lord.
Oh no, Lord, I would never abandon you.
It was her.
God:
Silence!
And you, Eve, mother of all,
What have you to say?
Eve:
It wasn’t me, Lord.
It was the talking serpent.
The snake beguiled me, Lord.
Oh Lord, you know that I,
The pinnacle of your creation,
Would never disobey you, Lord.
No Lord, the snake made me do it.
God:
Silence!
Oh that these beautiful creatures
Would take responsibility
For their actions.
I will give them what they seek,
Punishment enough.
Perhaps I can show them once more
That I love them
I will make them clothes,
Clothes to protect them,
Clothes to keep them warm.
And this evil, sin, and death that
Is about in the creation
I will take responsibility for that too.
I will continue to seek after
This man and this woman,
No matter what.
Nothing they can do will ever be able
To separate them from my love.
I will make my love visible to them,
All about them, in the creation,
In their offspring, in my angels,
Prophets, and in my son,
Who I will send to them.
Everything will be for their benefit.
Adam speaks for us all,
Psalm 130
Adam:
Out of the depths have I called to you, O Lord;
Lord, hear my voice; *
Let your ears consider well the voice of my supplication.
If you, Lord, were to note what is done amiss, *
O Lord who could stand?
For there is forgiveness with you; *
Therefore you shall be feared.
I wait for the Lord; my soul waits for him; *
In his word is my hope.
My soul waits for the Lord,
More than the watchmen for the morning. *
More than the watchmen for the morning.
O Israel, wait for the Lord, *
For with the Lord there is mercy;
With him there is plenteous redemption, *
And he shall redeem Israel from all their sins.
God:
Oh Adam, Oh Eve,
Don’t you know that
“He who raised up the Lord Jesus
will raise (you) to himself- and you as well?
You see, everything is for your benefit.
No, I’m not out of my mind as they have said,
Everything is for your benefit.
Amen