Scripture: Genesis 2:10-17; John 1:35-39; James 1:22-24; Leviticus 19:18; Deuteronomy 6:4-5 Series: Creation
Finishing a series on Creation (Genesis 1 and John 1), Wilson preaches on the Tree of Knowledge and the rivers of Eden, refusing to assign intention to God and instead letting the text speak (exegesis, not eisegesis). The deep link between Genesis 2 and John 1 is geography: paradise is a concrete place, and Jesus says ‘Come and see’ to a home where he is staying. The call of Christ is geographic and three-dimensional, requiring movement; to stay put is to ignore the call. Drawing on James, the sermon urges being doers not hearers, and (via Mother Teresa and a Seinfeld bit) doing good for God’s eyes rather than others’. He closes by tying this to Covenant UMC’s stewardship campaign: show your support, don’t tell, so the church can say to friends and family, ‘Come and see.’
Illustrations: ut-poetry-workshop-substitute, show-dont-tell-writing, food-poisoning-knowledge, john-milton-paradise-lost, mother-teresa-do-it-anyway, seinfeld-rental-car-reservation
October 22, 2023
Genesis 2:10-17
John 1:35-39
Come and See
A river flows out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it divides and becomes four branches. The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold, and the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is Gihon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Cush. The name of the third river is Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, “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.”
- Genesis 2:10-17
The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, and as he watched Jesus walk by he exclaimed, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!” The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, “What are you looking for?” They said to him, “Rabbi” (which translated means Teacher), “where are you staying?” He said to them, “Come and see.” They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon.
- John 1:35-39
I was an English major at the University of Texas. In part, because I like to read. Also, because I wanted to finish college as soon as possible and I had some AP credits towards English that would let me finish the major quickly. I wanted to get a bachelor’s in three years and that helped in the process.
I took poetry for my creative writing with a nice, old Canadian poet. One time, our instructor was away and another poetry teacher taught us. This other instructor had a different, more formal style. After you read your poem, you could not say a thing. So if someone heard something in your poem that you didn’t intend to write, you couldn’t say, “well, I meant to say. blank].” You should have left it in the text, you should have put it in the poem. All that was there was the text on the page. The authorial intent didn’t matter. Funnily enough, this one time poetry workshop sub really effected how I read and understood the Bible. This was before seminary, before I’d really formally studied the Bible. I read it a lot, but in a different way. To talk about it crassly, the Bible was a way to supplement my prior knowledge of the Christian faith. That is, when I read the Bible, it functioned as supplementary material for what I had in my mind already about God, about Jesus, about salvation, about all these things. I kept on trying to fit the Bible into the answers I had in my head.
After this class, I read the Bible in a different way: I let the page speak for itself. In seminary, I learned about this as the difference between exegesis and eisegesis. Exegesis is letting the text speak. Eisegesis is putting our own meaning into the text.
When confusing things came up while reading the Bible, i wouldn’t dismiss them. I would use not my own cleverness to resolve anything, but other passages of scripture that I knew to try and clarify in this way, so that I’m always submitting myself to the scripture, never putting myself over the Bible.
Another thing I learned in creative writing was the adage: show don’t tell. If you’re writing a novel and you have a character who’s sad, don’t just say, I’m sad, show that they’re sad. Do not treat the reader as if they’re stupid. Engage them. Or if, in a poem, you’re trying to describe a complicated situation, don’t tell the reader “This was complicated.” Show how complicated it was. If you can’t show the complications, it really isn’t complicated.
I took this mindset to my understanding of scripture. What is the Bible showing me, not just want is it telling me. What is the tree of knowledge showing us and why is it there?
Series Intro
My friends, we are finishing our series on Creation, looking at Genesis 1 and John 1 together to understand more Christ’s presence in Creation, God’s power in creation, and the importance of creation for us today. Today, the Tree of Knowledge.
This is one of those perennial questions that that comes up again and again and again. The forbidden fruit. John Milton, for me, has shaped a lot of how I read this, but when I come to it again to come to it afresh and need to receive the scriptures, one thing about this passage that is often overlooked is the importance of rivers. Not a lot of sermons on the rivers in Eden. There are two rivers that are famously named to this day. The Tigris and the Euphrates, which flow through modern day Iraq. There are other rivers, the Pishon, which the Rabbi Rashi says is the Nile, although Josephus calls it the Ganges. And the Gihon, which others call the blue Nile. Paradise is located at this confluence, at this source that is going to spread over the world. The place matters. The location of paradise isn’t random. It is concrete.
And Adam, the one made of the ground, is placed there. Adam is given a boundary, given, a limit.
”Eat of all that you want, all the trees that you want, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat.”
The text doesn’t say, do not eat, but you shall not eat. Shall is one of those words that the King James translates in a way that obfuscates what is going on. It happens in the 10 Commandments: thou shalt not murder. A better translation is: you will not murder. God doesn’t say don’t murder, but you will not murder. You will not eat of this tree. Why is the tree there?
the tree
I spoke about this a little bit last week but it is worth spending a lot of time on it. Why is the tree in the garden? There has been a lot of speculation over the years about this tree. When we look at the text itself and let it speak to us, let it show us what it means, we cannot come to a conclusive answer for why the tree is there. We cannot put intention onto God. We cannot claim that God is trying to tempt us or gate-keep us. As I mentioned last week, the tree could just be poisonous to humans but good to animals. There are other creatures who would have eaten the fruit of the tree. Poisons give you knowledge. Have you ever eaten anything toxic? You learn a lot about your body. Just to be clear, if you’ve ever had food poisoning, it’s like you become intimately familiar with all of the orifices of your body, with a lot of knowledge that is quickly gained in a recovery from food poisoning. But again, this is pure speculation. What we have is the text and the reality of the situation and what happened from it. What God said and how Adam and Eve listened.
In the gospel of John, people are told about Jesus Christ, but it is not enough. Later in chapter one, Nathaniel is sitting under a bush and Philip comes up to him and says, the Messiah is here. He is from Nazareth, and Nathaniel says, what good ever came out of Nazareth? The response is, come and see.
One of the deep connections between this passage from Genesis and from the gospel of John is geography. Not who or what or why, but where. Where is paradise and where is Jesus? Paradise is a place. There are rivers and trees. Jesus is staying at a home. Come and see. Where are you going? It is just as important of a question as who are you? Where are you going? Are you going to the place God said is poison or are you going to the home where Jesus is staying?
God gives humanity paradise. This garden of wonder. God tries to protect us from what could harm us in the garden. God gives us a place. Jesus calls us to a place. It is easy to over spiritualize the life of faith, to put Christianity in a box so small that it can fit into your pocket. But Jesus never does that. Even when Jesus talks about how the Torah is summed up in the Shema: Here, O Israel, the Lord your God is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and your soul and your mind. And likewise, he says, then quoting from Leviticus 19, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. These two things are not simple. Both demand geography, physical connection, and relationship. We cannot earn salvation. It is by grace all the way down. But we have to remember that when Jesus calls someone, it means they need to move. To not move is to ignore the call. When Jesus calls someone in the New Testament, they never stay in the same place. They’re always moving from here to there. Jesus himself rarely stays in the same place. Jesus comes to us but also calls us to him. Jesus stays in our home but also calls us out of our complacency to come and see.
If we are staying in the same place, we have ceased to answer the call of Jesus Christ. The call of Christ is geographic. It is three-dimensional. It’s about how we live our lives. At the beginning of the book of James, he makes a distinction between hearers of the word and doers.
”But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like.” James 1:22-24 ESV
But in this, it is not about other people seeing us be doers but God seeing us. If we strive for visible piety, we will already have received our reward. Jesus explains this again and again in the sermon on the mount. If we are doing the word of God to gain the attention and affection of others, we are lying to ourselves about what we are doing. It is not about us and them. It is always between us and God. Mother Teresa articulates it well in her great poem, Do It Anyway.
People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies. Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you. Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight. Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous. Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow. Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough. Give the best you’ve got anyway.
You see, in the final analysis it is between you and God ; it was never between you and them anyway.
It is not enough to say you believe; you need to show it. Not to the people around you, not to your next door neighbors. Not by putting bumper stickers on your car or like blasting Christian music, showing it with the lives you live, showing it with your support of God’s Ministries. It reminds me of an episode of Seinfeld where Jerry is trying to rid to car and he is, he’s flown in to an airport and he, he, he got a reservation. He lands and they say, we’re sorry, but we don’t have your car.
Jerry : I don’t understand. Do you have my reservation? Rental Car Agent : We have your reservation, we just ran out of cars. Jerry : But the reservation keeps the car here. That’s why you have the reservation. Rental Car Agent : I think I know why we have reservations. Jerry : I don’t think you do. You see, you know how to take the reservation, you just don’t know how to hold the reservation. And that’s really the most important part of the reservation: the holding. Anybody can just take them
Anybody can say they’re a Christian. Anybody can say they follow Jesus. It’s the holding that counts. And it’s not about dividing other people, it’s about you and your own heart. It’s about me and my own heart and how I respond to God’s call on my life. How you respond to God’s call on your life. And whether we respond in the most limited way possible or the most abundant way, or even somewhere in between. We are finishing our stewardship campaign here at Covenant United Methodist Church. Stewardship is not finished. It is a year long thing to take care of what God has given us. But the call today is simple and the pledge cards offer an opportunity. Show your support, don’t tell. Show your support so we can proudly say of the church to our friends and family, come and see.
Come and see God is here. Come and see where will this church be in the next year, in the next five years, in the next 50 years. Come and see what God is doing. Show don’t tell.
Let us pray, Heavenly Father, we thank you for calling us to come to you. Help us to answer your call. Help us to not stay in the same place but to grow in faith, hope, and love. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.