Temptation

Lent 1A: So What’s This Deal With the Garden?

shelliwilliams Lent 1A, Uncategorized , , , , ,

garden-of-edenScripture Passage:  Genesis 2: 15-17, 3: 1-7 (Lent 1A)

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.

So at the beginning of this year’s Lenten season, the Lectionary propels us back into our somewhat sketchy past.  St. Augustine and myriads of theologians to follow would have called it the “original sin”, as if it is the cause of all other sins that follow.  Now, admittedly, I don’t like to get stuck on that idea of original sin.  In fact, I think the notion compels us to sin again by refusing to admit that we just messed up!  And I’m pretty sure that if the first humans had not messed up, someone soon after would have.  But this is the story we have.

So we have images of humans walking in a beautiful garden hand in hand without a care in the world.  We can imagine babbling brooks and peacocks and calla lilies and llamas (I’ve just always liked llamas.) And then we have some sort of talking (and at that point walking snake) that pulls them away from who they are and who they are meant to be.  You can hear it…”oh, come on, it’s not going to hurt you.  There is no way that you’ll die.  In fact, your life will be better.  Your life will be grand.  Your life will be perfect if you just do this one thing.  God won’t mind.  God really didn’t mean what God said.” (And for only $19.99, you can have TWO pieces of fruit if you do it RIGHT NOW!  It sort of does sound like an infomercial when you think about it!)

And they give in.  They give in to the first temptation to be someone they are not.  Or perhaps they are just trying to pad themselves a bit against fears and insecurities to come. Then they realize their mistake much too late to change the course of their action.  They are left hurt, vulnerable, and alone.  Well, we know the story.  (Oh, who are we kidding? We’re LIVING the story!)  They are no longer innocent and the beauty of the garden is lost forever.

This has always been an odd story to me.  Now, admittedly, I’m sure it is of no surprise to most of you that I tend to assume that this is fable rather than a literal historical account. But just because it probably isn’t “true” does not mean that it is not full of “Truth”.  In some respects, this is the rawest, most profound, most human Truth that there is.  After all, we all wander down the wrong road every now and again and some of us do it daily without even intending it.  And we all live with consequences of trying to overreach, trying to be someone we’re not, trying to assume things that are not ours to assume.  We all live with consequences of, essentially, overstepping and overreaching and trying to be the god of our own life.  And we all lose that innocence that we once had.

But, really, does God want a bunch of mindless innocents walking around in this world?  If that were the case, then God would never have shared the part of the Godself with us that is known as free will.  You see, God in God’s infinite wisdom gave up omnipotence for relationship.  God doesn’t want a bunch of robotic beings (innocent and well-behaved though they may be) following the Great Divine because they know nothing else. (I mean, that would get downright annoying!)  God created us to desire, to choose, to follow God of our own volition.  Innocence is way overrated.  You see, if God wanted us to stay in some sort of garden, fenced off from the rest of the world, I guess God would have left us there, protected from the world and, mostly, from ourselves.  I really don’t think that this journey we’re on returns us to the Garden, whatever that was.  That was our beginning.  The journey returns us to God, to who God envisions that we can be.  Think of the Garden as our womb, the place that protected and shielded us until we were ready for the journey, until we found that part of ourselves that chose to follow, that chose God.

So what do we do after the garden?  We follow where God leads us; we follow that innate sense that all of us have to return to God and to whom we are called to be.  You see, we have no more excuses.  Read the end of the passage.  Our eyes have been opened.  We know where we fall short; we know that we cannot do this by ourselves; we know that God is God and we are not.  And in that is our beginning.  Thanks be to God!

Sin is our only hope, because the recognition that something is wrong is the first step toward setting it right again.  (Barbara Brown Taylor, Speaking of Sin:  The Lost Language of Salvation)

So on this Lenten journey, open your eyes.  Open your eyes and take a good hard look at yourself.  What do you need to choose to leave behind?  Where do you choose to go? What does your beginning, your escape from innocence, look like?

Grace and Peace,

Shelli

 

So, Again, Why Are We Here in the Wilderness?

shelliwilliams LENT, Longing, Wilderness , , , , , ,

Jesus tempted in the wildernessScripture Text:  Matthew 4: 1-11

 

Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. 3The tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.” 4But he answered, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” 5Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, 6saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, ‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and ‘On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.’” 7Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” 8Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; 9and he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” 10Jesus said to him, “Away with you, Satan! for it is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’” 11Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.

 

We’re past the mid-point place in the journey and it’s becoming tiresome. Is it all worth it?  We haven’t really seen any sign of where we’re going and things have gotten so incredibly uncomfortable (and some of it is beginning to get a little personal!).  We’re ready for all of this to be over.  At the beginning of the journey, we heard that Jesus had gone into the wilderness.  We already know that.  But the writer known as Mark didn’t really elaborate on the temptations that Jesus encountered.  This version of the story seems to focus on just that.

First of all, Jesus was fasting.  Now it doesn’t say what kind of fast—there are fastings from all meals except breakfast, there are fastings from everything except water, there are fastings from everything that enters one’s mouth.  There are also other fastings—fastings from certain input into one’s mind, fasting from doing certain things, perhaps fastings from human contact.  Maybe that’s what Jesus was doing.  Because forty days and forty nights by oneself doesn’t provide a lot of company.  He probably was famished.  But whatever Jesus’ fast entailed, it was long and it was hard and he was famished.

So Jesus is tempted when he is the most vulnerable, when all of his guard and his shields were down.  He is tempted to guarantee having what he needs, tempted to impress and be liked, and tempted to be in control.  Henri Nouwen said that the temptations were to be relevant, spectacular, and powerful. Oh, he could have made excuses.  We all do it.  After all, think how much powerful his ministry would have been.  Think what WE could accomplish if we were relevant, spectacular, and powerful.  The truth is, those things are not bad in and of themselves.  Relevance, spectacularness (probably not a word!) and power can do great things when they are harnessed in the right way.  But when they get in the way of who God calls us to be, when they become the reason we are doing things, when they become our primary focus and goal in life, then they have pulled us away from who God calls us to be.

See, Jesus knew those temptations and knew to resist them.  I think the whole reason that Jesus was tempted at all was not to prove that he could resist temptation but rather to put these things in their proper place.  They are not bad; they are just not the main thing, should not be the goal that we are trying to accomplish.  The truth is, this wilderness journey does not beg for us to accomplish; maybe in some way it calls us to famine, to being famished, so that we know exactly what we need.  So, again, why are we here in the wilderness?  We are here to empty our lives of ourselves so that they can be filled with God.  We are here to realize how our souls hunger and thirst for God.  We are here to finally know that nothing fills our emptiness, nothing fills us up, nothing fills our souls but God.  We are here to finally know that longing for God is our main thing because our longing will lead us to what we most need.

One needs to keep on thirsting because life grows and enlarges.  It has no end; it goes on and on; it becomes more beautiful…[One] cannot be satisfied until [one] ever thirsts for God. (Alexander Baillie)

FOR TODAY:  Long for God.  Write down what that means.  What emptiness do you feel?