Loading...From an early age, I’ve not liked this part of the Genesis story.
For one thing, as we read the story,
knowing what comes next and how things unfold
and imagining the movie music in our heads as the tension builds,
I just want to holler out to the two people
“Don’t listen to the crafty serpent!!
Can’t you hear that it’s tricking you and distorting things?
Can’t you tell that you’re turning away from God?”
But, then Eve takes the fruit while Adam stands there like a lump
(or, maybe even egging her on).
And as she’s raising to her mouth, in the movie in my head,
I try to stop them: “Don’t do it!”
But she chomps down on the fruit. And so does Adam.
Ooooo! Foiled again!
After all, this story is an archetype of what happens all the time,
every day,
for each one of us.
We may not be naked in our innocence
in front of a tree out of many in the forest biting into the forbidden fruit,
but we face choices all the time and
we face the temptation to turn away from God each and every day.
And, as someone else watches the movie of your life –
complete with musical score –
they see what you’re about to do and yell at the on-screen you:
“Don’t do it!!”
But you hear neither the music nor the yelling....
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I also don’t really like this story because Eve gets such a bad rap!
And, by extension, so do all of her sisters and daughters –
women through generations have been oppressed, subjected and maligned in large part because of a distortion of this story.
After all, Adam – our prototypical father and brother –
was right there
and he was tempted and turned away from God, too!!
I don’t see him jumping up and down waving his arms saying,
“Stop Eve!!”
Ironic, is it not,
that the story about the distortion of God’s goodness and God’s Word
is also, itself, distorted
so that the descendants turn on one another
in blame and punishment?
It didn’t take long for relationships to warp and to stay warped.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This is a powerful story as it attempts to describe what temptation is,
were it comes from,
why it is around,
and what happens as a result.
The story of “the first temptation” is paired on this Sunday during the season of Lent with the story of Jesus in the wilderness experiencing temptations also.
In fact, every year on the first Sunday in Lent we hear a version of Jesus’ experience in the wilderness with temptation.
That story about Jesus is particularly powerful
because Jesus is really very human in it.
For one thing, after fasting for 40 days, he’s famished!
Imagine that!
I’m guessing that if most of us fasted just 40 hours, we’d be “starving”.
Then he’s tempted to get food for himself – well, create food for himself,
because, of course, being Divine, he has the power to do that.
It’s interesting to me that it’s only after 40 days of this spiritual journey in the wilderness – a journey that the Spirit of God sent Jesus on – that “the devil” shows up.
The first question for me is “Who is this ‘devil’ character?”
Is there really a male figure – person-like—suddenly standing next to Jesus, just like the crafter serpent showed up next to Adam and Eve, with words and ideas to tempt him?
Or, is “the devil” a more amorphic-like spirit being?
Or, is this an anthropomorphic way of thinking about the little voice in Jesus’ head that poses possibilities and choices to him? The same little voice that we hear in our own heads?
The difficulty with making the devil something outside of any human –
Eve, Adam, you or I – or any Divine One in human guise, aka Jesus,
is that we both distance ourselves from the source of temptation as though it’s not really a part of us,
and we run the risk of elevating “the devil” – or Satan, as Jesus names it – to an almost god-like status that can wield over us.
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However we end up envisioning this source of temptation,
it is what this temptation does (or, lures us to do)
that can really be destructive!
When push comes to shove--
whether your name be Jesus, Eve, Adam, Michael, Amelia, or something else,
the temptation is to turn away from community and,
instead, to turn toward oneself.
As Jesus faced these temptations,
he had options to feed himself and care for himself
while overlooking the many who are also famished.
He had the option to act according to “the devil’s” plan
rather than by God’s
Jesus had the slipperier temptation
of using power and the potential for positive change
by ruling over the religious and political forces of the day,
but at the cost of humility, integrity, and of trust in God’s promise.
And, finally Jesus had the temptation to circumvent God’s involvement in humanity and the world and “save” all the kingdoms using Jesus’ own divine power.
How many of us might have succumbed to this temptation?
Especially when we see corruption, greed,
violence (done by nations and policies), inequality, and nepotism,
and think, ‘people should clean up their acts!
And, I’m just the one to lead the cleaning up!’
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But this is not God’s way of being in our story and in our lives.
Of course, God could’ve chosen
to come in with a mighty arm and with powerful forces to topple the nations of the world and replace greed and violence and destruction with God’s rule and God’s kingdom instead.
But, at what price?
To do that, God would’ve had to use ...
...violence and destruction.
Instead, God chose the subtler and much more powerful way – love.
It’s true. This is a way that takes more time,
and is not nearly as flashy and dramatic.
But it is a way that is how God creates the world,
and has been with the world, the creatures, and the people in the world
from the very beginning.
This Way that God chose, in Jesus,
to be in the world most intimately
means Jesus – the fully Divine and fully human Jesus –
faced, again, the very real possibility
of fixing the world quickly and impatiently.
This temptation was quickly pushed away: “Away from me Satan!”
because Jesus knew that God’s way in the world
is the Way of patience, not impatience –
a way of love not destruction
a Way of looking outward to others
not inward to one’s own selfishness
a Way of promise
along every page and chapter of the story.
Jesus faced these possibilities and choices
but each time chose the promise made to you –
so that when you are hungry for God, God is there.
and when you want things to be fixed just right just as you want them to be God is there.
Because, temptation or not,
in every step of our wilderness journey throughout Lent and in every day of lives, God is there with the promise and with unending and unshakable grace and love. Amen
