Lent 1 Year A 2020 – Temptation – Adam and Eve
Readings: Gen 2.7-9; 3.1-7; Romans 5.12-19; Matthew 4.1-11
Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal….
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.”.” ’ Genesis 3.1-3
On Wednesday we came together to be ashed. Today we set out on our first Sunday Lent!
And as we do every year, we join with Jesus in his temptations – as we seek to resist our own!
Each year Jesus’ temptations linked to a significant moment
in the story of God’s relationship with human beings as recounted in the Hebrew scriptures.
Out in that Judean desert, it would seem that Jesus’ unfolding understanding of who he was,
the growing urgency of God’s call on his life,
all this coming together in the powerful event of his baptism,
when he hears in the voice of God the profound assurance that he is indeed, ‘God’s beloved Son’,
all combine to throw him into some sort of serious mental collapse.
The enormous power he has at his command is overwhelming,
and the suffering he sees, waiting ahead, waiting for him, together precipitate a crisis.
Jesus is ‘tempted’ forty days in the wilderness.
This year our lectionary readings take us back to the beginning of the biblical narrative,
to that well known yet enigmatic story, of Adam and Eve eating that apple!
The story of ‘The Fall’ as Paul calls it, in his version of what this allegory means!
A thorough dose of temptation and its dire consequences! Eve tempted by the Serpent.
To eat of the forbidden tree, that tree of the knowledge of good and evil,
for it is a delight to the eyes – and to be desired to make one wise!
Adam tempted by Eve. But now, with their new knowledge,
they become aware of their nakedness, an awareness which troubles them –
and they experience a new emotion: shame. Afraid, they hide from God.
Building on Paul’s reflection on this story, through the early centuries of the Church,
and culminating in Augustine’s doctrine of Original Sin, this story has become read,
not simply as allegory to explain suffering in the world,
but as warning of the dire perils of sexual relationship! All sexual relationships.
Sexual relationship per se come to be seen as source, and means of transmission
of our sinful condition from generation to generation – corrupting even creation itself!
Sex, the ‘original’ sin! The fatal consequence of which is death!
Better beware the profound dangers which surround
that astonishing creature, woman!
But, is this right? Is the primordial transgression in this story, sex?
Is it sex which wreaks such catastrophic consequences on the whole world?
It is not the issue with which Jesus wrestles in the desert.
According to the account of their creation,
these first humans have already experienced the joy of sexual union!
God created woman to be companion to ‘Adam’,
and when God presents him with his woman, the man delights in her.
They cleave to one another and become one flesh.
Thus the notion that sex has newly entered the world at the point of disobedience in the Garden – destroying the goodness of God’s created order, such an idea is not present in this allegory.
And such thinking does not form part of the ancient Hebrew mindset.
So if not sex, what is this dangerous, tempting fruit, the knowledge of good and evil?
What is it that God has wished to protect his first created couple from?
What is their lost innocence about? Contemporary scholarship has suggested a different focus.
This story in the Hebrew is written with a sharp pun on words!
The adjective used to describe the serpent, arum, means ‘clever’,
while the word arummim describes Adam and his woman as ‘naked’.
In the closeness of these Hebrew words, is the author suggesting here,
that these first humans, in their disobedience have now become ‘clever’?
In the story, compiled in the time of the early Israelite monarchy,
the figure of the serpent is not an intrinsically evil being,
such as much later notions of the figure of Satan.
And maybe we should be taking the naming of this forbidden tree
more literally! In the eating of this fruit is the acquisition of knowledge,
a knowing of the difference between good and evil – and thus the loss of innocence.
Here God’s first humans have gained power to control,
power over creation – and, the almighty struggle for power over one another.
Biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann puts it like this:
‘In God’s Garden, as God wills it, there is mutuality and equity.
In God’s Garden now, permeated by human distrust, there is control and distortion.’
Potential for exploitation has entered the world, the tragic unravelling of the connectedness
that had been an integral part of God’s creation. And there are consequences.
In our vulnerability human beings will live now by the sweat of their brow,
and women shall experience, rather than partnership with men, domination.
God had warned them, eating of the forbidden tree spells death. But they do not die.
In God’s change of mind here, we may see that the prohibition on taking,
eating this fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, had been imposed for their protection.
They will loose that exquisite intimacy they had enjoyed with God –
but God is still very much present around them.
He continues to protect them, giving them the skins of animals for cover.
And, in the fulness of time, God will enter human society in human flesh,
will come to redeem this ‘Fall’ by the free gift of his Son.
A gift which brings justification – or, put more simply justice.
This story of Adam and Eve is a meditation throwing light on life
as the people of Israel experience it: a troubled, anxiety-ridden existence,
lacking justice and war-torn – much like our contemporary world.
The gross inequalities between rich and poor. Abuse of power by a wealthy elite.
The significant and remarkable thrust of this story,
is that it tells us such hierarchy, exploitation and inequality
are precisely not God’s plan for humanity.
It is the abuse of human freedom that is the root of evil and suffering.
In which of course, sexual exploitation is a major part. It does matter.
1This ancient story tells of a deeper root of our malaise,
filled as it is, with the suggestion that life could be another way.
The temptations faced by Jesus in the wilderness are each
those of using the divine power he possesses
for quick-fix, self-centred purposes;
gaining a following and the adoration of the crowd
by offering bread without work;
dazzlingly with miraculous feats defying the laws of nature;
the circumventing of the real work of caring relationships;
selling his soul in manipulation and deceit born of his superior abilities;
an overbearing focus on self, and an absence of loving kindness,
the breaking down of trust in thoughtless self-assertion.
Maybe our presiding sin is rather, our failure to take sufficient interest in, awareness of,
and care for, the well-being and dignity of our neighbour.
A care which does not fail, or count the cost, or ever turn away Amen.