Test Driving Theology

Well, welcome to summer. And welcome to what I think will be one of the most fun and most challenging sermon series we’ve done together in a while.

Over the next six weeks, we are going to spend time with the villains of the Bible. The Serpent. Pharaoh. A fallen king. A murderous ruler. The Devil himself. And a crowd that makes a terrible choice. Every week, we are going to sit with a villain and ask ourselves a pretty uncomfortable question: what do I have in common with this person?

Now, I know what you’re thinking. “Pastor Todd, you know…I’m a pretty good person. I recycle. I use my turn signal. I smile at strangers in the grocery store. I am not a villain.”

Fair enough. Neither were Adam and Eve.

And that is exactly the point.

Here’s what I’ve come to believe about the villains in Scripture: they are not there primarily to scare us or to make us feel somehow morally superior. No. They are mirrors. They hold up a reflection of something we recognize, something familiar, something we maybe don’t want to admit is in us. And once we see it, once we can actually name it, that’s when grace shows up. Because in the Lutheran tradition, we know that a wound is really hard to heal…until you acknowledge that it exists.  

So. Buckle up. And let’s meet our first villain.

I want to start with a little experiment. Think about the last advertisement you saw. Maybe it was on your phone, or on a billboard on the way here, or a commercial that played before a YouTube video.

Whatever it was, I want you to think about what it was really trying to sell you.

Not the product. The feeling.

Because here’s the thing about advertising: the best advertisers don’t sell you a product. They sell you a feeling of want. They tell you, first and foremost, that something is missing. That your life has some gap in it. And then, very generously, they offer to fill that gap for just $19.99 a month.

Think about it. Car commercials don’t just show you a car. They show you a version of yourself who is more confident, more free, more adventurous. The commercial asks you to visualize yourself…in a convertible…sunglasses on…hair blowing in the wind. 

What the ads are really saying is: The person you are right now? Not quite enough. But this car? This car could fix that.

It is one of the oldest tricks in the book.

And I mean that literally. Because it is right here…in Genesis 3.

Now before we get into the story, let me say something about the Serpent that I find really interesting. In Genesis, the Serpent is not described as a monster. It’s not a fire-breathing dragon. It doesn’t have claws or fangs, and it doesn’t show up with a scary soundtrack. 

In Genesis 3…in the original text…the Hebrew word used for “serpent” is “arum,” which means shrewd, crafty, clever. You see, the Serpent’s power has nothing to do with force or violence. Its power is entirely in its words.

That is what makes this villain so dangerous. And so recognizable.

Here is the scene. God has created this stunning, abundant garden and told Adam and Eve, “You may eat from any tree.” Any tree!  Any tree in this whole, vast garden.  Any tree except one.  “This one tree?  I’d like you to leave this one alone.” But the rest…it’s all yours for the taking.

Thousands of trees, and plants, and everything…all for you…save one.  Now this is a feast. This is God saying, look at all of this. It’s all for you. Help yourself. Enjoy.

And then the serpent shows up.

And notice what the serpent does not do. It does not threaten them. It does not steal from them. It simply asks a question. “Did God really say you can’t eat from that one tree?”

That’s it. That’s the whole move.

But in that one question, the Serpent has done something extraordinary. It has taken an enormous, generous, abundant gift and turned it into a story about restriction. It has shifted God from a gracious giver into a stingy withholder. It has taken the one tree they cannot eat from and made Adam and Eve feel as if the only thing that matters is that tree.

In their mind…that entire…vast garden disappears. All that lush abundance, the whole magnificent creation God spread out before them, it all collapses down to one tree and one prohibition. And suddenly, freedom feels just out of reach.

There’s a scene in a movie, “The Wolf of Wall Street,” where someone asks a salesman to sell them a pen. Most normal salespeople would start listing the pen’s qualities: it writes smoothly, it has great ink, it’s comfortable to hold. But the successful salesman does something different. He takes the pen away. And then he asks the other person to write their name. And because the person no longer has a pen, they want one. The sale is successful not because the pen is good, but because the lack of a pen… feels real.

The Serpent is the world’s first and greatest salesperson. And it sold Adam and Eve on the idea that they were lacking something they never actually needed.

Here’s a detail I love about this story that we often skip past. We read in the story that the serpent was primarily talking with Eve.  But Genesis 3:6 tells us that Adam was right there the whole time this conversation was happening. He is standing right there while the Serpent is doing its work, and Adam says absolutely nothing.

He doesn’t push back. He doesn’t speak a word of truth. He stands there, and then he eats.

You see, sometimes the villain’s greatest accomplice is the person who says nothing.

We know this. We’ve all been Adam. We’ve all been in a room where something wasn’t right, where a lie was being told, or a person was being diminished, and we stayed quiet. Not because we agreed, but because it felt easier…safer…than speaking up. The villain…the serpent counts on that silence. It always has.

And then the fruit is eaten. And you know what Adam and Eve feel when they eat the fruit?

Well, it’s not freedom. Not power. Not the limitless knowledge that was promised.

Shame.  They feel shame.

They look at each other, and they are suddenly, desperately aware of their own nakedness. Everything the Serpent promised would fill them up has left them feeling exposed and alone.

This is the mechanics of what Paul describes in Romans 7, where he writes, “I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do, this I keep on doing.” We reach for the fruit because we believe we are missing something… and that this will make us whole. And it doesn’t. And then we reach again. And again.  And we can’t stop, not by willpower alone, not by trying harder. 

I think about this a lot in our current world. I mean, think about the world we live in. We are surrounded by more abundance than any generation in human history. We have access to more information, more connection, more food, more entertainment, more opportunity than people even two generations ago could have dreamed of. And yet the anxiety, the restlessness, the sense that something is missing, it has never been higher.

Because the Serpent is still out there, it’s showing up in your Instagram feed and in the headlines and in the voice in your head that wakes you at 2 in the morning. It is still reframing God’s abundance…as evidence of God’s withholding. It is still making freedom look like restriction. And it has gotten very, very, very good at what it does.

This is why John’s Gospel matters so much here. Jesus says in John 3 that God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 

• You see, the Serpent condemns. God rescues. 
• The Serpent narrows everything down to that thing you lack. But Jesus reminds you that God has given you what you need: you are beloved. You are seen. You are not alone.

Here is how the story ends, and this is the part I want you to carry with you this week.

Right after our text ends, after verse 7, after Adam and Eve have eaten the fruit and sewn themselves those uncomfortable fig-leaf outfits, God comes walking through the garden in the cool of the evening. And God says, “Adam!  Eve!  Where are you?”

Now, God obviously knows exactly where they are. God has always known. So that question is not a search. No, it is an invitation.

Even after all of it, even after their deception and the silence and the fruit and the shame, God comes looking for them. Not to expose them. Not to shame them further. But to remind them that they are loved. 

This is the most important moment in the story.  Because just as with Adam and Eve, the God who sees exactly where you are and exactly what you’ve done comes looking for you… welcomes you…forgives and restores you.

And then in our story, God does something amazing…and important.  God makes Adam and Eve new clothes. He dresses them.  He makes them new.  Another gift. Even more abundance, even after all they’ve done.

You see, God doesn’t wait for you to clean yourself up…to get your act together. No…God shows up in the garden and finds you while you’re still feeling shame…still trying to avoid being confronted…still wearing the metaphorical fig leaves.

Our only response to this overwhelming love…to this abundant grace…is to say, “Yep, God, here I am…do your thing…make me new.”

Over these next six weeks, we are going to experience the same challenge in different forms from different villains. We are going to see the Serpent’s logic show up in Pharaoh’s fear, in a king’s lust for power, in a crowd’s demand for blood. And every single week, we are going to watch the same God walk through the same mess asking the same question:

Where are you?

This is the Gospel. Not that you must find your way out of the garden on your own. But that God comes in after you…and makes you new.

Welcome to the summer. Let’s begin.

Amen.