Serpentine Tales: Snakes in the Grass

Genesis 3: 1-8a Rev. Marianne Niesen July 11, 2010

Last November, when I was working on worship and preaching plans for the first 6 months or so of 2010, I came across an idea to do a series of sermons on lessons learned from stories in the Bible that include serpents. I thought it sounded interesting and I am always looking for interesting things to do - especially in the summer - so I planned it in. Of course, when one is planning for something that is 7 months in the future, almost anything can sound good. I must admit that as the time has drawn closer, I’ve questioned the wisdom of this plan more than once. Still, I’ve forged ahead and found some interesting stuff.

Today’s focus is on what has become known as the story of the ‘fall’ of Adam and Eve. You know the one . . . a snake tempts Eve to eat an apple from a forbidden tree. She in turn convinces Adam to do the same and the rest, as they say, is history. Of course, as often happens with stories, if they are told and retold often enough, sometimes the actual facts of the story get skewed. This one is a good example. In her book To Love Delilah: Claiming the Women of the Bible, Mary Cartledge- Hayes creatively explores this story as it has become known in what she calls our ‘popular wisdom.’

         God created Adam. Then God created Eve to serve Adam. God plunked them down
     in the Garden of Eden where nobody ever argued, itched, complained, or left dirty clothes on
     the floor.
  “Leave my apples alone,” God said.
  “Okay,” said the first couple.
          Time ambled past, with nobody able to remember what day it was because nothing
     occurred to separate one moment from the next.
          One day, Adam and Eve went for a walk. They planned to turn left at the apple tree,
     but, as sometimes happens, they stopped to talk to an acquaintance and got sidetracked.
          “Want an apple?” Asked the snake.
          “O gee, I don’t know,” said Eve. “I really shouldn’t. What do you think, Adam?”
          Adam didn’t say a word.
          “Oh, come on,” said the snake. “It’ll be a whole new taste sensation. Give it a shot.”
          “Shall I, Adam?”
  Adam didn’t say a word.
          “What can it hurt?” asked the snake.
  Eve took the apple.
  Adam didn’t say a word.
  Eve bit into the apple.
  Adam didn’t say a word.
  “Yummy,” said Eve. “Adam, would you like a bite?”
  “Yes, thanks,” said Adam.
  And he too ate from the apple.
          God was furious. He condemned the snake to belly crawling and tossed the first family out of the garden. God was especially angry with Eve, advising her that in punishment women would suffer pain in childbirth and earn only 60 cents on the dollar for the next multi-thousand years. This was fair because it was all Eve’s fault.
  And the moral of the story is: women are the root of all evil.¹

Now, you may disagree with a point or two there, but overall, Cartledge-Hayes’ interpretation gets it right - at least as far as things have been understood through the years. Still, there are quite a few misconceptions in this - and most - popular readings of Scripture. And, as John Dominic Crossan told us when he was here for our lectures, sometimes the best thing you can do with the Bible is to actually read it for yourself. With that in mind, then, listen to Genesis 3: 1-8a as found in the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible . . .

It is truly a beautiful story and follows directly after the second account of Creation. (Yes, there are two and they are quite different!) The second is the one in which the man is created first, then the animals, and then the woman. During this process of creation, God parades all of the animals before the man and he names them. And, at the end, since there is not a suitable partner for Adam among the animals, a woman is created. So, presumably, Adam has just named even the animal that appears in this story - the serpent. Which brings us to an important point. There is no snake in this story! There is only a serpent. It is a serpent who is declared the craftiest of all the animals and who approaches the woman. ‘Serpent’ is a much bigger category than ‘snake’ and carried more importance - or at least intrigue - when included in a story. Dan R. Dick who conceived of this sermon series wrote:

The Hebrew writers of these texts lived in a primitive and pre-modern world where fact and fantasy intertwined freely in telling a story. Serpents were much more impressive than mere snakes. In Egypt, the Israelites encountered crocodiles, throughout the Sinai desert and into the Promised Land, they met with a variety of lizards and reptiles, and from Babylon they received amazing tales of scale-armored dragons. Many early biblical interpreters viewed the serpent not as a enemy but as one of God’s precious creatures. Ephrem the Syrian and John Chrysostom (both 4th century) both believed that the serpent was a lovely creature, deeply attractive and appealing to Eve . . . Early Christian sects, such as the Gnostic Oophites, actually believed the serpent to be a voice of truth and virtue.²

In other words, the idea that it was a snake the slithered up to Eve and caught her unawares is simply not true. It was, rather, a serpent of some kind - and one she knew and recognized and treated as a companion in the garden. There is no evidence that she is surprised by the serpent - either by its approach or by the more surprising fact (to us) that it spoke. A talking serpent was just part of everyday life. That is, perhaps the first thing we need to learn in the story. Often the things that are most dangerous, that most challenge our peace and tranquility are not big bad things. They are the ordinary things. Things that seem good - and often even are good but that slowly eat away at the goodness of life. Temptation is real. We eat too much, spend too much, worry too much, work too much and slowly but surely, we can find ourselves alienated from the things that really matter - family, friends, God, ourselves, those things that would bring us peace. You see, when the friendly serpent becomes an evil snake slithering into our lives and manipulating us, we can more easily write it off. The things that hurt us are rarely that sinister.

Which brings me to the next point of clarification. Contrary to common lore, the serpent is not ‘Satan’ presenting some nefarious evil - although through the years, it has been made to be exactly that. But that is not in the text. Again, what we know from the story is that the serpent was one of the animals created by God and so was good and simply engaged Eve in a chat. Dietrich Bonhoeffer called this dialogue the ‘first conversation about God.’ By that, he meant that the real tragedy of this conversation was that Eve stepped away from her relationship with God and talked about God.³ The serpent asked her about the tree and its rules. The woman told what she understood about it and the serpent responded telling her that she wouldn’t die if she ate of it - which, by the way, was true. The serpent also suggested that God was really just jealous of what would happen if she ate of the tree - and she chose to believe the serpent rather than her own experience of God - the Creator who walked with them in the Garden. Think of it . . . when God becomes an object of discussion rather than our Divine companion who walks with us and talks with us, we human beings have always done some strange things. Don’t get me wrong . . . knowledge about God is a good thing. I make my living hopefully helping people learn about God. But that is no substitute for a relationship with God - which is the personal responsibility of each one of us. Just think of how many people beat up other people over who they say God loves or how God operates. People are killed over this stuff - and it breaks God’s heart. Eve’s mistake, her sin, was her willingness to turn her back on the relationship she had with her God and, instead, believe the gossip. Now that’s a temptation with which we all struggle all too often!

But, here again, we need to return to the text. Through the years, Eve has been branded as the first sinner, the root of all evil, deserving of eternal punishment and human subjugation. Make no mistake about it, this text has powerfully affected the lives of women in particular in negative ways through the years. Eve failed the test, led Adam to follow her and that is how we know women are weak, gullible and not to be trusted. And, while it is true enough that the serpent in the story talked to Eve, that alone raises an interesting point. The ‘crafty and wise’ serpent talked to Eve and, for someone just recently created, she certainly engaged in an intricate conversation about life as she knew it with him - all of it while Adam stood silently at her side. The text tells us that ‘Adam was with her’ and thought her assessment of the whole enterprise was a good one. He, after all, had been the one created first, the one who named all the animals, yet he said nothing, deferring to her. Still, this story is not about fixing blame on who is more guilty. It is instead the story of how easy it is for us human beings to forget how blessed we are - to turn God into an object of discussion and to let even the good things in our lives become obstacles to that original blessing. Temptation is real and, in a sense, the greatest temptation , the ‘root’ temptation is forgetting who we are and whose we are. When that happens, we can mess up big time and begin to trust even the serpents in our lives.

But, that is not the whole story. Immediately after this eating of the fruit - by the way, you’ll notice there is no mention anywhere of an apple. That’s totally made up. Immediately after their choice to eat of the forbidden tree, they heard the ‘sound of God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze.’ That’s a wonderful image. God, of course, questioned them and they blamed each other, and the serpent, and God handed out consequences but the most important thing of all was that God was still there. The serpent had been right - God did not stop loving them. They lost their innocence. They had to grow up in new ways. But they were not abandoned by God. And, in fact, the entire Bible is the ongoing story of how God continued - and continues - to walk with humanity, calling us to remember how much we are blessed, challenging us to be better, to be good, to try again. Over and over, the Adam and Eve story plays out. We listen to voices that lead us the opposite direction of where we want to be. Again and again, God keeps loving and calling us back home.

This may be an old story but we know it all too well in our own lives. We neglect our relationship with God. We let so many things get in the way of what is really important to us. We grow up the hard way, always. The good news is that if we listen and look we too will hear the ‘sound of God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze.’ The Bible’s power is that - talking serpents notwithstanding - it is our story, leading us to better understand and deepen our relationship with this God of ours who loves us and lives with us.

In her book, Mary Cartledge-Hayes follows each account of ‘popular wisdom’ with an imagined first-person reflection from the woman in question. (She has stories about Lot’s wife and Delilah and Mary Magdalene and others.) Since she helped me begin this sermon, I am going to let her help me end it. This is titled From the Garden.

What was it like when I was young?

First off, nothing slithered.

Your dad and I walked ten miles

to the stream and back

each day without complaining.

Everything that could sing did.

How has it changed?

Roars took the place of purrs,

and fear that never was is now.

Lambs and lions flee

when they hear me laugh.

Everything still knows my name,

but none will call.

Was it worth it?

No. It never is.

How has it changed?

When I could no longer talk to birds,

I had time to spend on other things.

See this leaf? Once it was wild.

Now it’s tame, even as it cages my body.

See this rock? Whether cold or warm

it’s always stiff. That’s a thing worth knowing.

Look in the pond. See the shadows?

I didn’t when I was young.

Was it worth it?

Yes, because this is life

and there are wonders enough

to ease the pain.

What’s the biggest difference?

You’ll learn that for yourselves,

but, if you insist, I’ll tell you this:

now I have to listen

to hear the songs.⁴

Let us pray . . . good God, give us eyes to see and ears to hear and hearts willing to seek your presence in our lives. Remind us of your love for us and of your eternal desire to walk with us through all that life brings. May we hear your voice and trust your leading, today and always. Amen.

³Concept found in a sermon on Genesis 2: 4-25 by Elizabeth Achtemeier, Our Sin Against God, http://www.esermons.com.

⁴ Cartledge-Hayes, op. cit., p. 19-29.