Third Sunday after Pentecost
Sunday, June 9, 2024
Genesis 3:8-15

My heart starts racing. My palms start sweating. I feel the unease creeping up my spine. I get so nervous, so anxious when I call over to the Original Mexican restaurant to order takeout. It’s absurd, I know. I don’t know what it’s all about, I just do not like ordering takeout over the phone. I’ve been guilty of dialing the number and then passing my phone off to my wife to do the talking. Because, what if I get the order wrong? What if the person taking my order asks me a question I don’t know the answer to? What if I accidentally order beef when really, I wanted chicken? I mean, I’m nervous just thinking about it.

Of course, I know in my rational brain that there is nothing to be nervous about. It’s just a phone call to get a chile relleno. But there’s more. I’ve been preaching for seventeen years now, and I still get nervous every time I climb into the pulpit to give a sermon. I know it’s going to be okay. What’s the worst that could happen? But the anxiety is a real thing. In that anticipatory moment our brains start spinning, we start doubting ourselves, we come up with all the reasons we’re going to fail, so we get the sweaty palms, the pounding chest.

But it goes deeper than that. Anxiety, it seems, is simply part of the human condition. We’re anxious about hurricane season. We’re anxious this election year. We’re anxious about the world our kids are going to inherit. We’re anxious for our safety. And so what do we do? We have two standard reactions in anxious situations. First, we try to pass things off. Like I pass off the phone to order takeout. We just can’t cope with it, so we do whatever we can to get out of it or to bury our head in the sand. That’s our first way to control anxiety. If that doesn’t work, we try to control the anxious situations. I get into the pulpit and I’m nervous, so I have my sermon written, word for word; it gives me a sense of control. We come up with routines, schedules, strategies to control these situations. That’s what anxiety does to us.

That, more than anything, is the story of the man and the woman in the garden. That is our story from Genesis this morning. It’s not really about talking snakes and walking around in fig leaves. This story is about deep human brokenness, it’s about anxiety, it’s about trying to pass the blame and it’s about humans trying to control a situation that has gotten out of hand.

So, God has told the man and the woman in the garden not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The serpent, though, has other ideas. Listen to how the serpent plays into the human anxiety. The serpent says, “You will not die [if you eat of the the fruit]; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” That’s it, that’s the anxiety. The man and the woman are now worried that their eyes are closed,  they didn’t know that before. They start thinking that maybe there is more to life than what they are seeing now. They start worrying and fretting and thinking that maybe they have missed out on something. The serpent has injected just enough doubt into the human’s minds that they go straight to anxiety. 

Of course, their rational brain would tell them not to eat the fruit, because God had told them not to eat it. But humans are not rational creatures, I hate to break that to you. We’re anxious creatures.. A rational person should be able to order Mexican takeout over the phone. A rational person should be able to see that, actually, we live in a pretty safe world. A rational person should be able to listen and obey simple commands like, “hey, don’t eat from that tree.” But, alas, that is not what or who we are.

So what do the humans do? They go straight to control. The humans try to control the situation. They eat of the fruit that God told them specifically not to eat. But guess what? Grasping for more control only makes them more anxious; they realize they’re naked. So they fight for more control. They sew fig leaves to cover their nakedness. They hide from God. They become ashamed of who they are. It is a vicious downward cycle.

Then they start blaming each other. Remember, that’s the other byproduct of anxiety. The man blames the woman, the woman blames the snake. And, sadly, tragically, their life falls apart. When we talk about “the Fall” of humanity, this is what we mean. It’s not that some original sin is passed down from generation to generation. It’s not that we blame that man and that woman for our sins. No, this is our story. This is the every human’s story. Our lives fall apart due to our anxiety, our need to control, and our blaming – that’s the Fall of humanity. That is every single person’s “original” sin.

And notice, too, that I have not referred to the man and woman by any proper names. That’s one of the quirks of this story. The name Adam is really just a pun. Adam means, “dirt,” or “earth,” or “dust.” Because the man was formed from the dust of the earth. Kinda like a “snowman” he’s a “dustman.” And Eve, well, that name does not come along until after this story. See, the man and the woman are unnamed, because they are us, and we are them. Not in the gendered sense but in the spiritual sense. We get anxious, we try to control the situation, we try to pass blame, and then it all blows up in our face. That’s the story. That’s the original sin. That’s the sin that we all deal with, day in and day out. 

It’s the same sin that the people around Jesus were dealing with. Jesus is teaching and his grace, his love, his mercy creates anxiety. The people are anxious when they start thinking about a kingdom in which all people are loved equally. The people get anxious when Jesus asks them to pick up their cross and follow him. Everyone gets anxious around Jesus because Jesus is calling them to a higher standard. So what do they do? They try to control the situation, they try to pass the blame. They’ll say that Jesus has a demon. They’ll say that he has gone out of his mind. Even Jesus’ family comes and tries to talk him out of it. Anxiety is the baseline.

Anxiety. Of course, some people will say that because the world is a lot worse nowadays we have every right to be anxious. But I’ve got to tell you, we’re actually not that different from every single human generation that has come before. It’s because we humans can hardly cope with the intricacies, the hardships, the complexities of every day existence. I do sincerely and earnestly believe that this is our original sin. We don’t trust God, we don’t trust each other, we aren’t rational, and so we do things that don’t make sense, and then it all falls apart. That’s the story of Adam and Eve, that’s the story of the people around Jesus, and, it is our story. 

So what’s the solution? Well, there is no one solution. And I do want to say right here, that I do believe that, some of us will require therapy, counseling, and even pharmaceutical treatments to address our anxiety. When used responsibly, there is nothing wrong with that, with treating the emotional scar tissue and ratcheting down the chemical anxiety in our brains.

But there’s more, and it’s for everyone. And it’s something my old spiritual director used to tell me when I was anxious; he would always tell me that the path to knowing God, is also the path to knowing yourself. Know God, know yourself. The reason we’re in church, the reason we pray and worship, is about growing in the knowledge that we are beloved child of God. The reason we are attentive to our spiritual lives is so that we know why our palms get sweaty, why our minds start racing, it’s about knowing that we are human; and then offering even those moments to the Lord God. It’s not that by following Jesus, we will suddenly become rational people. No, we will always be anxious, because we are human. But we can invite the Holy Spirit to come alongside of us when we are anxious. So that we don’t have to face this world alone. 

That’s the good news of Jesus. That when I have to order takeout, that when I have to give a sermon, when you have to say some really hard things to your family, when you have to make a decision that will change your life, when you have to hear terrible news from your doctor, when you have to face someone with whom you don’t see eye to eye, when you have to come up against the ambiguities and the hardness of life, when you have to face your own mortality – you will know that it’s okay to be anxious, and you’ll know that Jesus is right there with you. When your mind starts racing, when your palms start sweating, you can have peace, and the knowledge that you are a brother and a sister of Jesus, the lover of your soul.