Wiley and the Lady in the Garden
A sermon shared with St. Timothy Presbyterian Church in Livonia, MI.
Wiley and the Lady in the Garden
February 11, 2024
Genesis 3:1-7
As someone who doesn’t have to preach every Sunday, I took this opportunity to do something a little different. Part of that different is retelling the story we just read in Genesis. This is my wonderings of how it might have happened, or perhaps as Paul Harvey used to say, the rest of the story. So I give to you the story of Wiley and the Lady in the Garden…
Wiley was handsome, some might even go so far as to say beautiful. When Wiley took notice of you, it made you feel special because it meant you could freely take him in, bask in all that pretty. The problem was Wiley’s outside and insides didn’t quite line up. I’m not saying that he was in to cussing out sweet little old ladies or knife fights in dark alleys. No he was more like Eddie Haskell from Leave it to Beaver. He liked to dabble in deception.
One day, Wiley decided to see how far he could take deception. No on quite knows why, whether it was jealousy, envy, or maybe just plain old curiosity. It was a simple deception, uncomplicated, one question followed by a simple statement. It’d hard to tell how long Wiley spent working on finding the exact right question for his plot but once he did, he was ready to use it.
There was a garden and, in the garden, lived two very interesting creatures, the only ones of their kind. They had been made different from everything else. You see God spoke creation into being, it echoes with His voice still, but these two they had God’s fingerprints all over them from having picked them up from the earth and forming them. Wiley approached them in the garden, making sure to find the best light to be in when he set the stage. He wanted to be on full display so no night time hijinks for him. He found the lady and set to work. The question he asked could really have been innocent enough. Just casual conversation. No had even heard of gossip before so the lady and no reason to doubt Wiley’s genuine sounding question. She also didn’t know her own limitations in that moment. If she had, she may have just referred Wiley to God for the answer. Some might say that the lady wasn’t a liar but she did misrepresent God, she added the tiniest caveat to what God had proclaimed. And because lying wasn’t a thing until the very moment she created it; her confusion probably overcame her and she was deceived. What was it she really heard God say? Would God keep good things from her? This new source of information was attractive, it must be trustworthy, no need to verify these new ideas with God.
The question that lead to deception from Wiley in itself may not have been enough to change things for the two in the garden. But their response to the deception pushed them further away from God. The one deception lead to another until it became their standard practice. They took deception and embraced its power, forsaking the goodness of God.
The lady saw the forbidden fruit and instead of using the truth she had been given, “if you eat of it, you will surely die” she looked at the fruit itself. It looked good and it appeared to be good for eating but the truth was there whether or not she accepted it, it did lead to death. She offered the deception to the one who had always been with her and he having stood beside her, took her word over the truth, “if you eat it you will surely die.” Not a single word did he say to her. Not a question or clarification, he took the deception as his own. The two now understanding that neither could be trusted, that deception was more tantalizing than the truth they tried to hide from one another, creating clothes what would hide them in a lush garden, leaves that would allow them to be beside each other and yet not have to look on one another. Not having to look at the fingerprints upon their bodies that reminded them that it was their choice to not be together with their creator.
I prefer happy endings but that’s not where our passage leaves us today. You know, the word that keeps coming to mind when I read this passage is deception. Even though the word itself isn’t here, it is an example of deception.
The word deception comes from deceive which when broken down into its roots means to take from. Something was taken from this couple in the garden or maybe they gave something away they assumed had no real value only to discover once it was gone that it was of tremendous worth. I’m reminded of the Antique road show and how often people will drag an old family heirloom in just to discover if they hadn’t played with it as a child or let the dog gnaw on the leg that one time it could have been worth a half million at auction but as it is, it’s just a fun story to tell your friends.
The couple in the garden didn’t necessarily know what they were about to lose but the moment they engaged with the serpent’s craftiness, it was gone. And by it, I don’t mean the garden or even their life. I mean their ability to trust God and one another.
The woman, could have directed the serpent to God to answer the question. Her sloppy attempt at mimicking the actual command given points to a desire to possess the knowledge of God. A simple, “You can ask God during our evening stroll,” would have been far more acceptable than her exaggeration. The serpent probably saw the opening, her small slip of the tongue pointing to her desire to be God and he in turn points to a crack in the door, maybe even confirming her own thoughts she’d wrestled with before, he tells her “you will be like God.” The seed planted, the research on achieving her desire for herself comes to a head.
She didn’t eat the fruit on the word of some pretty serpent. She observed it, tested it in a variety of ways. She determined: 1 it was good for food (check), 2 pleasing to the eye (check), 3&4 desirable for wisdom that would make her like God (check check). After her research, she took it and ate it. And then she offered it to the man with her.
She took for herself something that she wanted. Pastor Joel shared during our bible study this week that the type of wisdom that the tree offered was like the knowledge of God without the relationship with God. The lady tried to become as wise as God without God. She tried to take away, to deceive God of his relationship with her, she didn’t express a need of God even once during this entire story. There are so many opportunities that the lady could have turned to God, yet at every opportunity, she instead chose herself and her own desires, forsaking the one that created her, the one that as we know through scripture freely gives wisdom, just read Proverbs 8 or the James 1. God is not stingy when it comes to wisdom, it’s a gift that he desires to give to us and yet this time, in this passage, it was taken, snatched and gobbled up in a scheme to gain something they already had.
Yes, they already had it! The man and the woman were created in God’s image they were LIKE GOD. God shared with them freely, God still to this very day gives wisdom to all who ask and yet they chose to take it for themselves, to have the wisdom of God without God himself.
It’s easy to stand on the outside and peer into the story saying, “I would never” and yet that is exactly what we continue to do. We continue to try and make our own ways, forging our own paths, deciding our own futures. We like the lady in the garden grasp for the power, seeking to control God, to control God’s wisdom.
I’m reminded of the work in our own garden this past summer. I will admit that I have more than once tried to usurp God’s power by keeping control of my bank account, keeping things neat and tidy, perfectly adding up time and time again. I get a great sense of satisfaction by seeing the numbers grow, bigger numbers must mean that I’m doing it right. But last year, we entered a season of spending. We’d been saving for a few years to help fund Joel’s sabbatical, not knowing what the project would be when the dollars got put away but knowing they’d be spent. There I was happy with my numbers that I’d collected together all in one place. And then they started to change. The numbers began to get smaller. Yes they were being used for the project but that’s not the way I want them to go. Stay big numbers! Don’t dwindle!
We would go to the store and see things we wanted, I would hem and haw, knowing that it was better that we spend instead of retain. I’d find ways around the big dollar signs, buying on sale, finding cheaper alternatives for the same function. I told myself I was being a good steward. But I was still in control of the purse strings. I still decided if it was okay in my mind if we spend it or not. But there was a nudge from God that I was holding back. That I was standing there, taking the fruit off the tree and stuffing it into my bank account. Surely this was good, I’m the saver of the two. One has to be the saver, right? It can’t possibly lead to death.
Then without a word to Joel, I realized what my saving was potentially saying, not that he would ever believe this of me but it was saying, I don’t trust you. And I wasn’t just saying it to Joel I was declaring it loud and clear to God. I’m the one that has to be in control of this area because you can’t be trusted to provide for me the things I truly desire. If I leave my savings in God’s and Joel’s hands then I’m just going to end up stuck with a washing machine that has a mind of its own and a yard full of grass that needs to be cut again. But I realized, I was taking something away from not just Joel and God but from myself, something that I already had, I just couldn’t see it. I was taking away the provision of God, which is a beautiful thing to witness. I was taking away the joy of a job well done and the joy of gifting at the exact right time. I was deceiving myself, I felt I needed to be in control in order to make sure I didn’t go without. But we are never going to go without because like the lady in the garden, God’s fingerprints are all over us and our lives, God’s voice echoes still through creation, we serve the most high king who cares for us and freely gives all that we need even if we don’t have a single penny in our savings. It might not always look like we expect it to, but provision has always been and always will be right on time. The hard part is remembering to seek God at every opportunity and not trying to work it out on our own.
Let’s pray.