And the Lord God commanded the man, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden;”

Life is largely a result of the choices that we make.

We are the products of the school we attended or didn’t, the jobs we have taken or rejected, the marriages we entered or ended, the relationships we sustained or left drift away, all of these things have had short and long term impacts upon who we are and how we live our lives.

And I’m not talking about the easy choices.

We are continually making easy choices, which socks to wear, what to have for dinner, what show to watch tonight, which team to root for, these are the choices pass us by in the day to day moments of living and they are interesting but they really don’t matter.

I know, you want to try to avoid wearing the brown socks with the blue suit, but it isn’t going to change your life, nor is whether you have pork chops or chicken tonight, nor is choosing to watch a particular TV show, or rooting for the right team, well, that can be a lot of fun as it was last Sunday night, but it is not crucial.

I know people who dress poorly and eat vegetables and watch reality TV and even root against the imperfect, Super Bowl champion Giants and they are good people. Not as happy as they might be, a bit misguided, but good people!

That is because most of those decisions of taste are just not crucial.

But there are other choices that are crucial.

These are the choices that matter, the choices that define and limit our lives, the choices that enrich or deprive us, these are the choices that we often make in the garden and in the wilderness, in the places that the Bible points to as the places of great blessing or the places of great turmoil.

And where are you and where am I and where are together as a congregation and where are we as a nation and as a world in these early days of Lent 2008?

Are we living, as the poet T. S. Eliot described it, in a wasteland of shattered dreams, empty lives and petty concerns?

Or are we living, as the poet T. S. Eliot described it, in a garden blossoming with potential and promise and hope?

Our morning lessons, and our life experiences, tell us that Eliot was right, on both counts: there are times and relationships that are garden-like and there are other times and other relationships that are as barren and lifeless as a wilderness.

Unlike Eliot who suffered through his wasteland experiences first, scripture takes us to the garden first. The gardens are the quiet spots where time stands still and God is both near and apparent and the demands of life are clean and clear.

The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to till it and keep it and to enjoy it.

This is the second story of creation.

The first one is the familiar sequence of the days of creation, it fits well with a scientific view of the universe, but this one doesn’t it is a lyrical, poetic version.

The man is created from dirt, and then sometime later, the woman comes from a rib transplant and between those two acts of creation, all of the animals are created and paraded before the man for naming.

And – in contrast to the first creation story where the whole world was opened to the people – here the man is told that there is one tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, from which he must not eat.

Which sets the stage for what comes next, when Adam and Eve choose poorly in the Garden.

Much attention has been given, over the years to the temptation presented by the snake and Eve’s weak surrender and strength in dragging Adam down with her and Adam’s attempt to toss the blame back to God: “The woman whom you gave me . . . “

So if I don’t say anything more about that part of the story, you are all familiar with it and I have said much about it in the past and I will again in the future, I’m sure

But there was something else that caught my attention this week, an earlier decision that Adam and Eve made, before the talking snake incident.

“You may freely eat of every tree of the garden;”

That’s what God told them and apparently they didn’t.

They failed to enjoy all of the other trees, focusing on what they didn’t have, rather than appreciating and delighting in the blessings of the garden, so they were vulnerable to the suggestions of the snake.

That’s our problem, so often, isn’t it?

When things are going well, we don’t stop and take pleasure in it.

We are so sure that there is something better out there that we fail to enjoy what we are and who we are at any given moment. I see it with those who have children, you can’t wait until they’re out of diapers, you can’t wait until they go to school, you can’t wait until they are older, you can’t wait . . . and that’s the problem.

I know how much time in the garden I wasted with my children, I know the choices I made for career and ambition and ego that ignored the blessings of the moment that were around me as I obsessed over the future and I am fortunate that they have, pretty much, forgiven me for not waiting with them.

Go play “Cat’s in the cradle” on your ipod and then take a look at your calendar and realize how much free spiritual nourishment you ignored.

God wants us to wait, together and with him, and enjoy our life as it is today.

We are meant to sit leisurely in the garden that is ours, to enjoy the children not for who they will become, but for who they are at any given moment, it is a choice that we make.

“You may freely eat of every tree of the garden;”

I see it in marriages.

Here are the words from the liturgy that we use and they are similar to the words that have been used historically by most Christians, they are probably very close to what those of you who are married used: “Will you love, comfort, honor and keep in sickness and in health and forsaking every other, keep to him or her only, so long as you both shall live?” and then “I take you to be my wedded wife or husband, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, to death us do part.”

Does that accurately describe the way that you view your spouse?

Does that accurately describe your personal priorities of work and entertainment and life?

Do you recognize the garden of love that God has placed you in and are you enjoying that blessing?

Again I don’t look back with pride on my own track record here, there have been times, too many times – and there still are - when I have been so caught up in what we’ve been and where we are going that I haven’t been able to appreciate the moment, I haven’t chosen to sit and simply be there for Debi, I haven’t chosen to recognize the blessings of the garden.

When we are in the garden, the choices are almost always those of appreciation and pleasure and delight we’re not very good at that.

As I watch folks in some of the more conservative, evangelical Churches, with their emphasis on God’s blessings and goodness and joy I realize that we, in the Reformed tradition, can learn much from their gardens of happiness and worry less about what is wrong with the world, while we celebrate what is right.

It is a choice that we make.

“You may freely eat of every tree of the garden;”

However, I’m not ready to throw John Calvin completely under the bus!

For we do live in wilderness times as well as in garden times and simply smiling and saying that God is Good does not make pain good.

This is the contribution that we make to the Christian conversation from our Reformed tradition: we take the wilderness seriously, we know that there are decisions and choices that we face in the wilderness that are not clear and easy.

A friend of mine told me recently about a conversation with someone who is dealing with cancer treatment and when the patient complained about the misery of the treatment and wondered if should have even begun, my friend said, “I understand”.

The patient went to tears, for this was the first person who had allowed her to recognize and to say that she was in the wilderness and she was miserable.

We are too quick to tell each other that the problems being faced will all work themselves out Ok and that everything will be happy in the end, except sometimes it’s not.

If the garden is where we make the choices of whether or not we will appreciate all that God has given us, the wilderness is where we make the choice of how we are going to find our way – in those old words from Woodstock - “back to the garden” when we are lost and afraid and alone.

The choices that Christ faced were the same sort of choices that we face, what do you do when the times are hard? And Christ knew that food and safety and wealth were fine, but he also knew that in the wilderness it is easy to turn those things into idols, in the wilderness it is easy to say “results count”, in the wilderness it is easy to forget that we are called be faithful and to trust God.

We know all about that don’t we?

It scares me at how easy it is to begin to make our homes in the wilderness, how we chose to trust ourselves rather than God. We all spend time in the wilderness, it is a place into which God leads us at times. Matthew is clear on that, it was not the tempter who led Jesus into the wilderness, it was the spirit of God.

The spirit of God leads us into the wilderness where we are called to a faithful perseverance, in the words of one writer “a long obedience in the same direction”.

And when Jesus stayed faithful, when you and I stay faithful, he was, and we are, nurtured and ministered to and waited on by angels, God’s messengers.

And when that happened to Jesus and when that happens to us, suddenly we are back in the garden, back in that place where we have all that we need – food, safety, security, wealth and power – all that we need for the living of our lives.

When we choose to do the right and faithful things, in the right and faithful ways for the right and faithful reasons, God takes care of the rest.

During these weeks of Lent I hope and pray that you and I will have, and choose to enjoy, many, many garden days along the way. But perhaps the most important thing for us today is the realization that if and when we find ourselves in the wilderness we can choose to be faithful and God will create a garden of care and nourishment and growth for us.

And the Lord God commanded the man, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden;”