10/12/22
This is my favorite season of the year! In the mornings, I’m on the back porch with a cup (pot) of coffee, wrapped up in a blanket, watching the sunrise, loving the crisp cool air. My drive to the church is always beautiful, but day by day it is becoming even more beautiful under this blue October sky. The trees are changing with vibrant colors. The air is filled with light. I love this time of year!
In talking about the rhythm of grace and gratitude Sunday, I mentioned that everything is a gift from God. Creation could have been fully functional but drab, yet God made it beautiful. In fact, Genesis 2 specifically tells us that when God “planted a garden eastward, in Eden” that “out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food.” Not only functional (good for food), but also beautiful (pleasant to the sight).
And this time of year especially, we get to revel in that beauty!
Have you ever wondered what was beyond the borders of Eden? We know that part of the first couple’s punishment was to be banished from the garden, and that the man would spend his days toiling in ground that had a curse on it, battling thorns and thistles, sweating to grow his crops. But were the thorns and thistles a result of the curse or was it just part of the life outside the garden?
The man (the Bible doesn’t actually call him Adam until chapter 5) was given the job to “tend and keep” the garden. Some translations say something like “till and keep.” The Hebrew is literally “serve and guard” (incidentally, this is the same charge given to the priests in their care of the tabernacle. On second thought, that might not be so incidental. . . ). Plowing, planting, pruning . . . would weeding be part of that? Impossible to say for sure, but it certainly seems that while the ground easily yielded its fruits to this first gardener, there was a certain amount of labor involved. An older friend once told me a week is anything growing where you don’t want it!
But it’s also interesting to me that in ch. 1, when God created humankind, God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it” (Genesis 1:28). Notice that last part: one, they were to “fill the earth” and, two, they were to “subdue” the earth.
How could they stay in Eden and yet fill the earth? They were banished from the garden because of their sin, yet here, before the forbidden tree was ever mentioned, much less the first temptation and sin, they are told to fill the earth - and it’s part of the blessing. “God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion . . .” (Genesis 1:28). Was God looking forward to life beyond the borders of Eden?
Second, what does it mean that they were to “subdue” it?
I believe it was God’s plan for the first family (had they not sinned) to extend the borders of Eden. As they worked, tilling and keeping the garden, being fruitful and multiplying, it wouldn’t be long until the Eden would be filled with people. The next generation would be given homes of their own, pushing the borders of the garden farther and farther out in concentric circles, until the entire world was subdued and turned into one massive Eden – a word, by the way, that means “Delight,” “Pleasure,” and “Paradise” - by a people who were holy, righteous, loving and wise.
God certainly made it possible. His good creation I wrote about last week had everything in place that humanity needed to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.” God made that possible when he blessed us. When God created us in his image it means – along with many other things – that we were to be stewards over creation. When God gave us the vocation to subdue and rule, God assigned us a task and provided what we needed to accomplish it. God tailored the world to our needs, not to his (because God has no needs). This universe is God’s throne room, but God designed it for us and set us up for success with his perfect creation.
Furthermore, I believe that it's part of our task as believers to carry on that work. Certainly, every time we plant a flower or even mow our lawns, we “tend and keep” the garden where God has planted us. I talked about my mom thanking God for dirty dishes. . . have you ever considered thanking God when you’re mowing your lawn? Pulling weeds? Watering your plants? (I’m preaching to myself now.) These are certainly blessings from God, and tending and keeping them is a privilege, not a pain.
Beyond that, by living godly lives before our neighbors, by taking care of the less fortunate, by sharing our goods and sharing our faith, we are extending the borders of Eden. The vision of the prophets is that “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea!” We take part in that when we do what we were created and redeemed to do.
Take time this week to look around at our many blessings and give glory to God in the simple things.
Blessings!
Pastor Terry