“Home”
Genesis 2:4-17
We are reading through the book of Genesis. We are at the beginning of the story. In chapter one Moses provided a wide angle view of how the world began. In Genesis two we are offered a more detailed account that takes a narrow focus on how humans were created. Then God creates a garden for them to live and work. This had to have come from God because no humans were present to witness. Verse four tells us it was,
“when the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.”
This is the first use of the word LORD, or Yahweh in the Bible.
Interestingly, the English word for LORD comes from the Anglo-Saxon word for bread, as does our word, loaf because ancient English men of high stature would keep a continual open house, where all could come and get bread to eat. This brought about the honorable title of “lord” meaning dispenser of bread. Here we have the “Lord,” the bread of life, creating the very humans for whom He would be Lord.
When you read the first two chapters of Genesis it can seem like a contradiction. Let’s remember, we are reading a narrative, not a “how to” manual. Moses established that the Lord had created the earth and everything in it in chapter one and now chapter two he narrows down just how the Lord created humans.
The most significant difference in creating humans was that God didn’t speak them into existence, like He did the sun and the moon. Instead, we are told He created humans out of the “dust of the ground.” There was nothing spectacular in what humans were made of. In fact the word used for dust in a figurative or symbolic sense means something of little worth, or being associated with lowliness and humility.
Upon this creation, we read that the Divine breathed into the nostrils the breath of life and the human became a living being. The Hebrew word for “breath” is “ruach” which means “spirit.” Of all that God created, humans are the only creation that God created by putting His own “breath” or spirit into.
Then the Lord God makes the human a home. He plants a garden in Eden and puts the human He formed into it.
In this garden God puts every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. God creates a home for the human that looks pleasing to the sight and is also able to keep them fed. Exactly what home should be.
We are told God also planted two distinct trees in the midst of this garden, the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Each tree had a purpose.
Eating from the tree of life sustained eternal life, we find this out in the next chapter, Genesis 3:22,
“And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”
In the last book of the Bible, the book of Revelation we read that the tree of life will be in heaven and will be available to God’s people,
Revelation 22:2,
“On each side of the river stood the tree of life,”
Revelation 2:7,
“Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who is victorious, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.”
This is real, not fiction like Sleeping Beauty who eats a fruit and falls asleep until a prince comes to kiss her awake. This fruit has the ability to keep someone alive for eternity.
Then there was the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” Otherwise known as the “temptation” tree, or I like to think of as the “testing tree.” This tree provides a test for the human to demonstrate obedience or disobedience to God. More on this later.
Next we read about a river that went out of Eden. Moses was able to give these rivers names however they cannot be used to determine the place of the Garden of Eden because the flood would dramatically change the earth’s landscape and “erase” these rivers.
We do have modern rivers today such as the Tigris and the Euphrates mainly because Noah and his sons would have named rivers in the post-flood world after familiar pre-flood rivers.
The history of the heavens and the earth, God creates a human and rather than leave the human to fend for itself, God creates for this human, a specific place, a special place, a place to belong, a home.
Check in time.
Ultimately, humans still have a deep longing to have a place they can call “home,” a place where they belong. I am painfully aware that the word “home” sometimes doesn’t have positive feelings, because of our own personal history. I am also aware on a daily basis that there are many people in our community today that are painfully homeless. And although Stepping Stone Housing is able to offer individuals safe, warm and dry places to live, that doesn’t mean those who live there have created a home. To make a home, there needs to be a sense of belonging and being a part of something that is bigger than ourselves.
When we look at the home God created we realize, home should be a place of sanctuary, a sacred space that offers safety and refuge. God created a garden for humans as a home, and called it Eden, which means “pleasure.” And in that garden God made sure that all the needs of humans would be met. He met the need for food by planting trees with food and He met the need for pleasure by planting trees that were pleasurable to look at. Home should be a place where our needs are met. Both physically and aesthetically. Home should be where we go for nourishment and nurturing.
In a fallen world, there are many who do not experience home like this with their family. That is why the family of God, the church should be a home for all of those who need one. The early church provides an example for us.
As they started trying to live out the Christian life, we are told they gathered daily, both in the temple and each other’s homes. What a concept? You mean people actually gathered every day? Many of us find it difficult to carve out even an hour a week. The church should be like a home, and should function like a family. In order to do this we have to make time for it.
Then our personal homes should be an extension of what we learn and have in worship. Our homes should be a place where God is welcome and offers a place for us to come and for others to come where we can find rest and peace.
Home should also be a place of life. Eden was the center of God’s place for humans and through that center flowed a river.
The picture of a river in the Scriptures is always a picture of life. It is also a picture of the Holy Spirit which is both refreshing and a blessing.
So, think about your home. Is your home a space where you and those in your family and others who may enter can be refreshed? Where they are offered a place to relax, be themselves, put their hair down, find rest, and get energized so they can go back out into the world and be an encouragement to others?
Home is also a place of boundaries.
When God placed the human in the garden of Eden He gave him the job to take care of it. It would require work from the human to keep up the garden. It takes work to keep up your home.
Not only was the human supposed to take care of Eden, God gave the human the first commandment. God set boundaries. The reason God did this was to provide a choice. God wants our love and obedience to Him to be the love of and obedience of choice. Not only did God provide a choice, He also explained the consequences for each choice. We will go over the consequences in detail in chapter three.
Let’s face it. There are many trees of temptation in our lives, Adam had only one. But God has us covered. We can make bad choices all day long, and regardless, with God, we can have a home. The parable of the prodigal son demonstrates how one can take all that God has given, waste it away, find oneself living with the pigs and then wake up to the realization that even the hired hands have a place to call home in our father’s house.
Only to return to see our father running to meet us, throwing a robe over our shoulders and throwing a feast to celebrate. Home becomes a sanctuary because of the grace of the Father who lives there.
That’s our invitation. God is consistently inviting us to come home. What makes God’s home a place of peace and acceptance is that Jesus is the center of it. Home is a place in which we feel loved and we are conduits of love. It should be a place where we experience forgiveness again and again, and we offer forgiveness again and again.
God isn’t finished building homes, He continues to build us a home, in John 14:2, Jesus said,
“My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you?”
In the meantime, Jesus tells us in John 14:23,
“Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.
Anyone who loves Jesus and obeys His teachings becomes a home, a dwelling place for the Spirit. Each of us has a home inside us, and God wants to reside there,
Revelation 3:20,
“Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.”
This verse is often used in evangelism, but in context it is a response to the church of Laodicea, which was full of lukewarm Christians, who were neither hot nor cold in their faith.
God said He was about to spit them out of His mouth. Instead, He reminds them that He is standing at the door of their heart, knocking, asking to come in and be a part of all of their life. To eat with them, talk with them, walk with them, be home with them.
We are never alone when the Spirit is with us. May we recognize God’s presence, open the door, let Him in and then offer the gift of grace and mercy that has been given to us to those around us.
Let’s pray.
