Naked Truth

Naked Truth

Text:  Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7                                                                   13 March 2011

            “An old country doctor was celebrated for his wisdom.  ‘Dr. Sage,’ a young man asked, ‘how did you get so wise?’

            ‘Weren’t hard,’ said the doc.  ‘I’ve got good judgment.  Now, good judgement comes from experience,’ he continued.  ‘And experience – well, that comes from having bad judgement.’”[1]

            Gather into groups of three or four.  For ten minutes I would like to invite you to talk about what you think wisdom means.  If you are not comfortable with talking in a small group, then feel free to remain on your own and think about what wisdom is.  Once you have mulled over what wisdom is, then I would ask you to think about what it is that makes a person wise?  Is wisdom something that only some people have?  Is wisdom a quality that we all have to a greater or lesser extent?  As you chat, you may be reminded of sayings, poems and rhymes about wisdom.  Feel free to jot these down. 

            Invite people to share their insights along with any poems/sayings etc...

Examples: 

• God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. 

                       (Reinhold Niebuhr)

• A wise old owl sat on an oak

The more he saw the less he spoke;

The less he spoke the more he heard;

Why aren’t we like that wise old bird?                            (Edward Hersey Richards)

• The wise man reads

both the books and life itself.    (Lin Yutang)

• Fruitless is the wisdom of him who

has no knowledge of himself.     (Erasmus)

• We learn wisdom from failure more than from success.  We often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do.  Great thoughts, discoveries and inventions have very generally been nurtured in hardship, often pondered over in sorrow and established with difficulty.

                                                                                                                  (Paxton Hood)

On Facebook I asked the question ‘What is wisdom?” and received a number of answers.  Baz told me of how his dad had given him a framed copy of the serenity prayer at a time when he was finding corporate life quite tough.  I received a couple of other responses:

• ...to me it's knowing stuff and having the discernment to know when to use it.

    (Judi Holloway)

• I think that Wisdom is about how we live in the world; it’s a quality of mind that allows us to distinguish what is important and valuable from what is not. Wisdom helps us take a detached perspective on the events around us.
  I think wisdom is like bonsai it is natural and must be cultivated. 

             (Margaret Esapa)

is like bonsai its natural and must be cultivated.             This story of creation that we find in Genesis 2-3 is essentially about the LORD God.  LORD with capital letters represents the name YHWH given to Moses.  Yahweh reveals his name and makes a covenant with his people.  God (Elohim) is a generic term widely used in the Ancient Near East to signify the creator.  The LORD God is the covenant making creator in partnership with humans.[2]

            It was the time before rain and farmers.  The earth was nourished by an underground stream.  The LORD God sculpted the dust crafting the shell of a man and then breathing into his nostrils.  This living being was placed in the garden of Eden populated by trees growing out of the ground.  At the heart of the garden stood two trees named ‘the tree of life’ and ‘the tree of the knowledge of good and evil’.  The garden was watered by a river that flowed out of the garden and branched into four rivers. 

            The LORD God – covenant creator – takes the man and places him in the garden.  The man has a purpose:  to till and to tend.  The man is given freedom:  to eat the fruit of every tree in the garden.  The man receives a prohibition:  all is for eating but for the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  The man is warned:  the day you eat of that tree you will die.  Popular depictions show a tree laden with apples.  Of course we have no idea what kind of fruit hung from its branches. 

We wonder what is meant by the ‘knowledge of good and evil’?  Many things have been suggested but the most likely is that it is the tree of wisdom.  To eat of the fruit of this tree would be to seek wisdom outside of God...to make moral and ethical choices without any reference to the one who created us.

            The LORD God – covenant maker and creator – is working in partnership with the man giving him freedom to name the creatures that he creates.  The LORD God sees that the man is alone and that this is not good.  However, no creature that the LORD God has made from the ground is a suitable partner for the man.  The LORD God causes a deep sleep and the woman is created out of one of his ribs.  The partnership that LORD God has with the man is now reflected in the partnership that he has made between the man and the woman.  The man and woman complete each other.  They are naked.  They are unashamed.  The relationship between the LORD God and the man and woman is one of trust.

            The LORD God has created a crafty creature, the serpent.  The word ‘crafty’ in the Hebrew is ‘arum’ and sounds a lot like the word ‘arom’ which means ‘naked.’  This is a signal that the craftiness of the serpent is intent on exposing the nakedness of the human pair.  It is interesting ‘arum’ not only represents slyness but can also refer to positive wisdom.  The serpent takes wisdom and twists truth to serve death.[3]

            From the moment the serpent opens his mouth until the woman and man consume the fruit, the LORD God is not mentioned.[4]  The name of the covenant God Yahweh is dropped and the bare name for the creator God, Elohim, is used.  The dropping of LORD alerts us to the way in which the relationship of trust is undermined. 

            The serpent’s strategy is to ask a distorting question.  “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden?’”  The serpent feigns not knowing what God said and puts different words into God’s mouth.  This is not what God said at all.  The serpent omits the extent of the freedom God had given to ‘freely eat of every tree of the garden’.  Instead he falsely portrays the prohibition extending to all the trees. 

             The woman puts him right.  She speaks of the freedom and prohibition God had given them.

The serpent is direct now.  He contradicts God.  It is as if he is says, “God says that you will die.  This is poppycock.  You will not die.”  The serpent undermines the relationship of trust between the humans and God.  The serpent does this by speaking words that are in themselves true but serve to place a question mark behind God’s motives.  It is true:  God knows that eating the fruit of the tree will give them the ability to perceive good and evil.  God knows that they will have god-like wisdom.  The sub-text of the serpent is this:  “God is keeping you from seeing...from being like him...from knowing good and evil.  He wants to keep it all to himself.  If you get wisdom then you won’t have to till and tend this garden anymore.  Who knows, maybe you’ll be able to create and rule the things you’ve made.”

The woman sees that the fruit of the tree is good for eating.  It appealed visually.  Knowing that eating the fruit would make them wise she throws caution to the wind.  She takes the fruit, eats it and then gives some to her husband who ate it. 

It’s only at this point in the story that we realise he is with her.  He’s heard the whole dialogue between his wife and the serpent.  He’s not said a word.  He’s remained silent during the whole deception.

The serpent was right.  Their eyes were opened.  They saw that they were naked.  The only thing to do was to cover up so they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths to cover up their genitals.  They had to cover up what they now saw.  They had to hide from each other.  They had to hide from God.

The naked truth was that pursuing wisdom outside of the relationship with the LORD God forced them into hiding.  The man and woman had been created for companionship and now in disobeying God they were alone:  isolated from God and from each other.  They were also at odds with creation itself.  They had given up the freedom of tending and tilling the garden for the struggle to survive in a hostile environment. 

Seeking wisdom outside of the wisdom of God signals that we are living in trust towards him.  Our purpose is to look after what he has created.  Our freedom is to enjoy everything he has made.  Our boundary is to trust his wisdom and not seek to be god-like.  This is the relationship God made us to have with him. 

How do we discern the truth from the lie especially when the lie has the ring of truth?  Each decision to act is weighed by answering the question:  Am I living out God’s purpose to live in freedom and trust his wisdom?  Or am I seeking to be god-like placing self in the centre of my choices? 

If I can be in the presence of God in prayer and be unashamedly naked, at ease before him, knowing a deep seated peace in the way I’m behaving and thinking, then I have an indication that I’m living in the wisdom of God. 

If there is a conflict within my heart...if I am reluctant to come before God and allow him to expose the motives of my heart...if I’m looking at doing something that I know is not right but which holds out the allure of benefiting me in terms of power, pleasure or gaining wealth, then I can be certain that I’m toying with wisdom outside of God. 

Furthermore, the wisdom of God is discovered in community.  The man was with the woman and instead of affirming the truth she had spoken to the serpent, remained silent and participated in eating the fruit.  The community of wisdom requires that we are together and through listening and truth speaking, we are drawn more deeply into the love of God.  You can help me to see when I’m hiding from myself and from God.  I can help you to see the naked truth.  Are you and I standing before God naked, yet unashamed?