CALVARY
BAPTIST CHURCH
Rev. Fred Weimert February 10, 2008
"Strange
Fruit"
The Hebrew Bible
reading for this morning
is probably
the most well know
passages of all scripture…
The story of
the temptation of Adam and Eve…
some
speak of it as the fall of humanity.
In today’s version
we will begin
with
the introduction of the Tree
of
the Knowledge of good and evil,
which
takes place in the second chapter of Genesis.
Dr. Walter
Brueggemann would say that this is a good place to begin,
because these three verses
15, 16, and 17 of the second
chapter
contain what Dr. Brueggemann calls:
“The warrant for being in the garden at all
and
the condition for the plot development.”
(pg. 46 Genesis)
Brueggemann says that we often think
of this story…
only in light of one of
the three facets of divine purpose.
when we
think of this story
we
think of the prohibition…
“But
you shall not eat”
which is one of the three facets,
but the
other two must be given equal attention…
those
being
(1)
Vocation—tilling and keeping the garden
(2)
Permission—you can eat from all the trees
(3)
Prohibition—except one,
the tree of knowledge
of
good and evil.
The
God of creation is spoken of here as affirming:
work is good,
be busy with it...
creation/food is good,
partake...
enjoy
but there is a limit—
be obedient.
I am certain you
know the story
but hear it again.
Genesis 2: 15-17, 3: 1-7
The LORD
God took the man
and put
him in the garden of Eden
to till it and keep it.
And the
LORD God commanded the man,
"You
may freely eat of every tree of the garden;
but of the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil
you shall not eat,
for in the day that you eat of it
you shall die."
Now the
serpent was more crafty
than any
other wild animal that the LORD God had made.
He said to
the woman,
"Did
God say,
'You shall not eat from any tree in the
garden'?"
The woman
said to the serpent,
"We
may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden;
but God said,
'You shall not eat of the fruit of the
tree
that is in the middle of the garden,
nor shall you touch it,
or you shall die. '"
But the
serpent said to the woman,
"You
will not die;
for God knows that when you eat of it
your eyes will be opened,
and you will be like God,
knowing good and evil."
So when
the woman saw that the tree was good for food,
and that
it was a delight to the eyes,
and that
the tree was to be desired to make one wise,
she took of its fruit and ate;
and she also gave some to her husband,
who was with her,
and he ate.
Then the
eyes of both were opened,
and they
knew that they were naked;
and they sewed fig leaves together
and made loincloths for themselves.
Here
ends the reading.
Last week my wife
showed me an article
about a doctor from the
who, after studying the
subject for about five years
said that homeopathic medicines have
absolutely
zero health benefits…
they
are just placebos,
which
may well be true.
However, given what we
know of the pharmaceutical business…
one might
wonder whether that doctor was paid off.
Still it never ceases to amaze me
how primitive people
came to
understand
that some plants have medicinal value,
while
other plants are dangerous…
I
don’t think God is whispering all these secrets to folks.
If God was…
Why did it take me so long to figure out
about poison ivy…
I guess God figured I should have had enough
sense
to look in the encyclopedia
or my scout manual
for a picture of the plant.
Here in this story
we have this strange fruit.
This kind of psychedelic…
Magic mushroom…
fruit,
which
has the power
to alter the consciousness of the eater…
moving
them from a state
of
blissful naiveté
to
a place where they are able to differentiate
what
is good
from that which is evil.
This is a truly amazing
and strange fruit…
because
unlike other medications,
which
only affect the immediate consumer…
this strange
fruit appears to have affected
all
future generations...
It
must have been radio active or something.
Apparently
it changed
our chromosome structure...
our
DNA.
It had to
because later in the chapter
we
are told
Humanity was cut off from the source
of this fruit...
the
cherubim
with the flaming sword
stands
guard
to
keep us out of the garden…
where
it grew.
Yet,
this knowledge of good and evil continued.
This was truly a
strange fruit...
but
there is truth to the story
because even though
serpents only hiss now...
I/we still
know the voice of the tempter.
We may not understand temptation fully…
or
maybe not until it is too late,
but
we do have some understanding of good and evil.
We understand it
even though we never reached up and picked that strange fruit
its aftertaste is still in our
mouths
in our lives...
in our world.
We can’t
shake its toxic affects.
How many of you
know the song
this, “Strange Fruit”, sermon title
came from...
“Strange Fruit”? (Raise your hand)
A Billy
Holiday song...
I
haven’t really known of it too long....
But
if I had ask
who had heard of “Strange Fruit”
in
a service at
almost
everyone would have known it.
Southern trees
very
strange fruit.
blood
on the leaves,
blood
on the roots...
Black
bodies swinging on southern breeze
Strange
fruit hanging on the poplar trees.
It
was a song about the lynching
of people of color
in
A tragic song about the times
when lady justice
became the
temptress.
She
lifted her blind fold
and
winked at white folks
and
said
“You
can be like God.”
“I’ll turn my back
while
you pretend you are doing my work.”
The result was that
strange fruit...
from the
tree we thought
we had left far behind us
in the guarded garden.
In the bulletin I
threw in another strange fruit poem...
“My First
by Ursula Duba....
Have you all
read it... (If not read the poem, see below)
At Christmas time
the Maryland Boychoir sings a song
about Adam lay Abound’in
bound up in
a bond…
all because
of the apple....
I guess I always
thought the fruit was an apple,
but maybe it was an orange...
that strange fruit
which
tempted this mother
to
shame her neighbors...
maybe
tempt those seven children
to
do her son harm...
because
of her foolishness…
her arrogant pride.
It is this same strange
fruit of exorbitance
that the “haves” indulge themselves
in...
in front of the “have-nots.”
That tempting self indulgent greed
that turns neighbors
into enemies...
instead of
brothers and sisters.
The reading from
the letters assigned for today
was to be from Romans 5: 12-19.
(You
will have to read it on your own.)
It was about Jesus...
who in that
passage is compared to Adam...
Adam,
the individual
who introduced sin
to all humanity
by
simply eating
that strange fruit...
Jesus,
the individual
who introduced forgiveness and life
to all humanity
by
offering his life and its fruit
for
our consumption.
Those who
feed on Jesus,
his
examples of love and living,
are
taken by his hand
back
into the garden...
to
taste the fruit of that other tree...
the
tree that wasn’t
originally forbidden
not in the beginning.
the
Tree of Life wasn’t spoken of
until
the end of the third chapter…
when
the guards were posted at the gates.
I
guess up until that time
Adam
and Eve could
be
nourished by
that tree of life…
They
could have life
in
abundance.
The good news is that in Christ we
have that good fruit again
“without money and without price.”
Come taste and see that the Lord is good. Amen.
*****
My First
by
Ursula Duba
From:
Tales From a Child of the Enemy
the first
oranges
which appeared
in German stores
two or three
years after WWII
were sold by
the piece
and cost the
equivalent of
ten loaves of
sourdough bread
two pounds of
meat
or thirty
pounds of potatoes
since we were a
family of nine
it didn’t make
much sense
my mother
explained to me
to buy a single
orange
at such an
exorbitant price
and then divvy
it up
into nine
portions
but a neighbor
of ours
who only had
one child
went out and
purchased
that exotic
fruit
the neighbor
whose husband
was an unskilled laborer
told my mother
that she didn’t
care
how much this
orange cost
she wanted her
son
her only child
who had been
deprived for so long
who had never
experienced
the abundance
of the prewar years
to taste an
orange
but given its
price
the eating of
this orange
had to be done
with the proper decorum
and in the
right setting
So she brought
her son
over to our
house
and while we
stood around in a circle
she showed her
son
how to cut the
skin lengthwise
into equally
measured sections
then peeled
them off
and finally
break off a section of the fruit
and eat it
in front of us
while
all seven of us
children
and my mother
watched him
our mouths
watering
yes we could
see the orange
yes we could
smell its fine fragrance
no we couldn’t
taste it
that was my
first orange