Genesis 2:4b-7, 15-17; 3:1-8
This is the second creation story related in Genesis. We don’t read the whole thing here, but we do get most of the action. We need to unpack the baggage we have in this passage, and do some work with what’s actually in the text, not what was in our children’s story Bibles once upon a time, or portrayed in the art over the intervening years. So, no, it’s not an apple.
On a basic level, this story is the basic story of faith. Humans get direction from God about what they can and cannot do. God is generous, perhaps overly so, with the first humans. They can have anything in the garden expect that one thing. Which, of course, makes that one thing for tempting. Except we don’t hear that. In the text, it takes an outside presence in the form of the serpent to tempt Eve. The serpent contradicts what God has told the humans. The humans believe the serpent over and against what God has told them.
Who is our serpent today? Who speaks to us over and against what God has told us? Who speaks to us in opposition to God that we listen to? Who tempts us? And whose temptation overrides our faithfulness?
