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Sipping Tea with God
by
dan benson
"Then the man and
his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was
walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they
hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But
the LORD God called to the man, 'Where are you?'"
(Genesis 3:8-9)
I've always loved this passage because
it paints such a picture of Paradise -- what true
relationship with God is like.
Imagine sitting in the
cool of the day, out on your patio, in the garden, under
some whispering shady trees, sipping an iced tea, maybe
of the Long Island variety, a vodka tonic or a glass of
lemonade.
And here comes the Big
Kahuna, you can hear
him coming through the underbrush, coming in from the
wild.
"The cool of the day" implies there's a
hot of the day, or a period of time when you're
sweating, like from work. So, it appears, God's been out
working all day. At what, I wonder? Or maybe it's just
Adam working and God is coming by to visit him at the
end of his work day. I think they've both been working
all day and they're checking in on each other.
Adam:
"How's it going, God? Take a seat, Dad. What'd you
do today?"
God: "Oh, you know. Healing,
creating, blessing. Same old same old,"
Adam:
(chuckling
as he is handing God an iced tea,
lemon no sugar.) "No, really,"
God: "Ha
ha ha. Well, I was over on
the other side of the galaxy most of the morning
fiddling around with this thing that I'm calling a black
hole, where the gravitational pull is so great it sucks
everything, including light, into it and then spits it
out on the other side of the universe. It's really neat.
When folks discover it it's going to blow their
minds."
Adam: "Wow."
God: "How about
you," (sipping his tea.)
Adam: "Well, I finished
naming the birds who can't fly -- penguins, ostriches
and emus were the names I came up with. How do you like
those?
God: "Very creative."
Adam:
"I was
going to start on naming those little crawly and flying
things that are everywhere but all I could come up with
was a name for the whole bunch of them -- insects -- and
then I was too tired to think any more. By the way,
what's with those little needle-nose buzzy things that
keep wanting to suck my blood. What are they good for?
God: "Remind me to explain it to you on
Saturday."
Adam: "Anyway, Eve and I decided to
have a picnic on that piece of land that sticks out into
the water and I was making some notes with my pen, the
one you gave me for my birthday, when it occurred to me
to name that stick out thing a pen-insula. I liked the
sound of it. Not as much as like the sound of
serendipitous, though. After that, Eve and I .... well,
let's just say we kinda chilled."
Eve: "Tee-hee."
God: "Cool,"
(smiling.)
Anyway, that's not how
the scene in Genesis develops.
Instead, the First
Couple, victimized by their own intellectual laziness,
fall prey to the Snake's query, "Did God really
say...?" They don't bother to really answer the
question. They don't talk to the Lord about it first.
They respond with faulty theology. Apparently, Adam
forgot to explain the rules of the garden clearly to Eve
since she answers the snake incorrectly.
Consequently,
they disobey and they see their true selves -- naked --
standing apart from God, on their own, and are
embarrassed. Self-critically, they don't like what they
see. So they hide when they hear the Lord come walking
through, ready for his evening get-together.
"Where
are you?" he calls out.
They're too ashamed, too
uncomfortable with themselves, too nervous, too afraid
of what God might say, what he might think. They stay
hidden. Another sin.
And so the Great Search begins, for
us, our hearts, our true selves, unashamed and unafraid
to approach the One who loves us and longs for the
fellowship we once enjoyed.
"Where are you?"
he cries. "Come out. Come to me."
I want to
holler from the bushes, "Over here. I'm over
here."
And I want to walk out, in my nakedness,
just as I am.
"Can I come back?" And have some
tea.
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