This is more of a reboot than a remake of the story of Adam and Eve. It takes apart the components of the story and puts them back together in a new way. It is intended to be light-hearted and fun with a serious message.
Once upon a time, God created the earth. At first it was just land and water. Hills, mountains, valleys and plains. Streams, rivers, lakes and like today, lots of ocean. One day God was walking around enjoying the landscape and decided to do some planting. So God created millions and millions of plants. God covered the earth with every plant alive today and a few that aren’t around anymore. God called the earth a garden.
The garden of Earth was beautiful and God enjoyed spending time there. Then one day, God thought it might be nice to have some company: someone to talk to, someone to listen to, someone to play with, someone to enjoy the earth with, someone to love. So God knelt down in the mud and formed the mud into a man and breathed life into the man. God called the man “Adam.”
God was pleased with Adam and they spent long hours walking around the garden of Earth enjoying the plants and the scenery and loving each other. Then one day Adam said to God, “I’m lonely”.
God said, “How can you be lonely? You have me!”
Adam said, “But, you are God and I am a human. We’re really very different. I suppose you must have a body because you walk around the earth with me, but in many ways you aren’t really very similar to me. Besides that, you aren’t always around. Sometimes you go away and I get lonely. I would like another companion with a body made of mud like me who is always here.
God didn’t really like this idea because God was worried that if Adam had another human to talk to, then Adam would not be as interested in talking to God. So God decided to try making other kinds of animals besides humans to keep Adam company. God created all the animals one by one. Each time God created an animal Adam would look at it and talk to it, but the animal would not talk back and Adam would be disappointed. Then God tried one more thing and created a parrot which repeated what the Adam said but still Adam was not satisfied.
So finally God gave up and said, “OK. Fine.” God knelt down in the mud and made another man and breathed life into the man and called the man, “Steve”.
God said, “OK, Adam. This is Steve. I’ve created Steve to keep you company.”
Well, Adam and Steve really hit it off together. They had a great time. They walked in the garden. They climbed trees. They adopted a couple dogs and liked walking their dogs together. Adam and Steve loved each other very much. And when God would come visit they would still walk with God together in the garden. They both loved God which made God very happy and everything seemed to be going great. Until one day Adam said, “God, Steve and I really love each other a lot and we want you to teach us how to make more people. We don’t want you to do it for us. We want to do it ourselves. You create people and we want to create people too.”
God said, “Guys, you can’t make other people. You could form them out of mud but you can’t breathe life into them because you are not God. Only I can do that. I can’t help you with this.”
But, Adam and Steve were very persistent. Steve said, “God, you have to help us with this. Adam and I see the way you create life and we want to do that too. We want to be like you. Besides, we love each other and we love you and we figure that the more people there are, the more love there will be.”
God had to admit that Steve had a point there, “OK. But, you can’t make people like I do because you are not God. And I can’t think of how you can make people together either. I just didn’t build that capacity into you. So, I need to make another kind of human with the ability to create a human being.”
Adam and Steve said, “OK. That sounds reasonable.”
So God knelt down in the mud again and this time formed two women. God figured that there should be two women since there were two men. God gave the women the ability to grow another human being within their bodies. God also made a few executive decisions like deciding that if the purpose of this project was to increase love on the earth, then the new humans that women make should start life incomplete and rely on the other humans to complete them as they grow. That would increase the bonds of love between people. God finished making the women and was very happy with the results and actually wondered if Adam and Steve were really necessary at this point. But, God decided to stick with the plan and God breathed life into the women and named them Adele and Eve. God introduced Adele and Eve to Adam and Steve and then left them to get acquainted figuring they would work things out.
After several months God came by for a visit to see how the humans were getting along. But, God was very surprised to find Adam and Steve hanging out in a valley by a river playing with the dogs and Adele and Eve were nowhere to be found. “Where are Adele and Eve?” asked God.
Adam replied, “We didn’t really get along. You know they’re very different. So they went over to the next valley. We haven’t seen them in months. And God by the way, when are Adele and Eve going to start making new humans?”
God was flabbergasted and decided to go find Adele and Eve. When God found them they were sitting under a tree in their own little valley have a great time talking and playing with some cats.
“Hi Ladies.” said God, “Why aren’t you two hanging out with Adam and Steve?”
Adele said, “We don’t really have much in common with them. We decided it was more fun to just hang out with each other. It’s a big planet so we just found a little spot to be by ourselves. Oh and God, we were thinking. Eve and I really love each other. We’d like to make more people. Can you show us how to do that?”
God said, “Let me get back to you on that.” Then God went away to a place all alone and started thinking. While God was thinking the snake appeared and said, “Hi God. What’s wrong?”
“Hi snake. You know, I created you to be one of the craftiest creatures on the planet maybe you can help me think through a problem. I don’t really want a lot of humans on this earth, but I wanted to help out Adam so I created Steve. Then they wanted to make more humans by themselves so I created Adele and Eve. If they work together they can create more humans but they can’t seem to work things out. They have the ability to create but they can’t seem to figure out how and they don’t even seem to like each other. I can’t make them do what they need to do and I don’t really even want to explain it to the. What do you think I should do?”
The snake said, “I have an idea. Why don’t you create a fruit tree? And you can put the knowledge they need about how to make new humans in the fruit of the tree. When they eat the fruit they will instantly know what to do.”
“Well that is a pretty good idea” said God.
So God created a special fruit tree and planted it half way between where Adam and Steve were staying and Adele and Eve were staying. Then God went to visit the men and then the women and said, “I made a new fruit tree over there. You should really go try it.” Then God went away for a while to let them work things out.
Several months past and God came back and asked the humans if they had tried the new fruit. But, none of them had even left their little valleys. Eve summed it up, “We’ve got everything we need right here. There is tons of fruit on this planet and we haven’t tried most of it. What’s the big deal? Besides we are trying to avoid Adam and Steve. Those guys are really obnoxious”
So God went back to the snake and said, “Got any suggestions?”
The snake said, “Maybe you should use reverse psychology. Forbid them to ever eat the fruit of that tree then they will have an irresistible urge to go eat it. You could even give it a vague special name like “The Tree of Knowledge””
So God went back to the humans in their separate valleys and said, “Hey, you know that new fruit tree I made? It is called the Tree of Knowledge, but I’ve decided I don’t want you to eat from it. So, new rule, you may never ever ever eat that fruit. OK?”
All four agreed. Then God and the snake went and hid in the bushes near the newly named Tree of Knowledge and watched and waited. And wouldn’t you know it, before long here come Adam and Steve and Adele and Eve walking toward the tree.
The snake looked at God and said, “I told you so.”
When the four arrived at the tree Adam said, “Hello ladies.”
And Adele replied, “Hello…from the other side.”
Adam said, “Did God tell you never to eat the fruit of this tree?”
Eve said, “Yeah. God said it was called the Tree of Knowledge and we should never ever eat it’s fruit.”
Steve said, “By the way, you know, God made you women to help us make more people. When is that going to happen?”
Adele said, “We don’t know how to make more people. Besides maybe if you guys weren’t so self absorbed we could figure it out.”
Adam said, “Well if you two weren’t so critical all the time, we might hang out more.”
Then Eve said, “Look. Let’s stop arguing. I think we should try the fruit on this Tree of Knowledge. It is clearly good for food. It’s a delight to the eyes and it will give us some kind of knowledge which sounds good.”
Steve said, “But, God said not to ever eat it.”
Adele said, “Well obviously God only said that so we would all come together and talk to each other.”
So Adam, Steve, Adele and Eve all picked fruit off the tree, and they all took bites at the same time. Suddenly they knew how to make new humans and the men looked at the women and the women looked at the men they all said at exactly the same time……“Ewwwwwww!!”
Then they all sat down and thought about the situation. They thought about how much they wanted to make more people. The fruit had given them the knowledge of how to do it, how the new people would be made, and how they would need to be loved and nurtured for many years. So they decided they better start talking to each other, and listening to each other, and learning how to like each other.
At this point, God and the snake who were still hiding in the bushes snuck away. God thanked the snake for the help and went away. This time God was gone for a couple years so the humans could really have time to figure things out.
Eventually God came back to visit with the humans. Happily, God found them all living together in the same valley. Adam and Eve had given birth to two beautiful children. Adele and Steve had three including a set of twins. They all loved their children very much and they all loved each other. Adam loved Eve. Adele loved Steve. And Adam love Steve and Adele. And Steve loved Eve and Adam, etc.
Satisfied, God asked them all to come visit the Tree of Knowledge. When they all arrived God said, “I’ll admit, I wasn’t too sure about this whole idea. I created the first human because I was lonely on the earth. I created the second human because the first human wanted someone like himself to love. I created Adele and Eve because it was clear that humans would want to create new life themselves. Now I see that with each new person I created, love did increase on the earth. That is a very good thing.
What I did not put within you when I first created you was the ability to love someone very different than yourself. You only knew how to love someone just like yourself. This tree changed that. You see the fruit of this tree has more than just knowledge of how to make new life like the snake suggested. This fruit also has given you the capacity to love those who are different than you. That part was my idea. In this world you need both kinds of love. Love for those who are similar, and love for those who are different. So I’m going to change the name of this tree now. It is no longer the Tree of Knowledge. From now on it is the Tree of Love. Whenever you start to argue and disagree or get annoyed with someone who is different, you can come and eat from the Tree of Love and remember how to love all kinds of people.”
“And you are going to need it, because I’ve decided to create even more people on the earth. There will be all different kinds. I’ll put one kind of people in one part of the earth. I’ll put another kind of people in another part of the earth. People are going to have different skin color, different kinds of hair, different languages and many other kinds of differences. Eventually they are going to start meeting each other and they will have to learn to love their differences.”
“And just to make things really interesting, you see these children you’ve created? They will be very different than all of you. In fact, every new person on earth is going to be different than every other person. Isn’t this going to be fun!?”
“So when you are challenged by the differences between you, whether in your family, your neighborhood, your nation or from different people on the other side of the earth, keep coming back to this Tree of Love and eating from it’s fruit. Keep opening your eyes to love your differences.”
Govans Presbyterian Church 