Beware Of Snakes

Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the animals that the LORD God had made. The serpent asked the woman, “Did God really tell you not to eat from any of the trees in the garden?” The woman answered the serpent: “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; it is only about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden that God said, ‘You shall not eat it or even touch it, lest you die.’” 

But the serpent said to the woman: “You certainly will not die! No, God knows well that the moment you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods who know what is good and what is evil.”

The woman saw that the tree was good for food, pleasing to the eyes, and desirable for gaining wisdom. So she took some of its fruit and ate it; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized that they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.

When they heard the sound of the LORD God moving about in the garden at the breezy time of the day, the man and his wife hid themselves from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. (Genesis 3:1-8)

I never did quite understand why they sewed fig leaves to hide their nakedness. They were husband and wife, and they were alone in the garden, except for the snake, and God.  There were no prying eyes.  Perhaps the leaves symbolically represented their shame because they disobeyed God.  If that’s the case, then we all better start growing fig trees.  We will need those leaves for we always disobey God. 

Let’s not kid ourselves.  We always eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and we often bite and consume the evil part.  After all we are faulty human beings easily succumbing to temptations of all sorts, such as easily viewed internet pornography.  No fig leaves there.

We daily confront deadly serpents.  There are many forked tongues constantly enticing us to their side of an argument and belief.  Again, the internet is a clever vehicle used by snakes of all types, including political hucksters, to soil our souls.

Let’s keep our ears open to hear the sound of the LORD God moving about in our gardens, in our lives.  It’s best to listen to those footsteps looking to tread on snakes hoping to bite our ankles and loosen our morals.  The moral of this story?  Stand naked before our God; look the snakes in their beady eyes; and then follow St. Patrick’s lead – chase them out of our lives and into the sea.

Deacon David Pierce