Knowledge
Genesis
2: 15-17; 3: 1-7 (NRSV)
The
Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to till it and to 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 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.
Matthew
4: 1-11 (NRSV)
Then
Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished. The
tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones
to become loaves of bread.” But he answered, “It is written, ‘One does not live
by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
Then
the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the
temple, saying 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.’”
Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the
test.’”
Again,
the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of
the world and their splendor; and he said to him, “All these I will give you,
if you will fall down and worship me.” Jesus said to him, “Away with you,
Satan! For it is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’”
Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.
This morning our Revised
Common Lectionary has picked for us to hear two very familiar stories—Jesus’
temptation as he fasted in the wilderness, and Eve’s temptation to share the
forbidden fruit with her husband, Adam. There’s an obvious common theme at work
here, and, arguably, a common character across both stories. The devil, if you
believe in him, shows up in both stories—in Genesis, as a snake who can talk,
and in Matthew, as the underhanded supposed expert on luxury, able to tell
Jesus exactly what he should do to make his stay in the desert nice and
comfortable.
Of course, we see the common
theme between both stories—temptation. Eve’s temptation to do the only thing
God told her not to, and eat of the forbidden fruit, and Jesus’ temptation to
abuse his divinity for his own personal gain.
It’s no wonder that this
theme of temptation might be what stands out to all of us first. It’s a theme
we can all relate to. We have to deal with temptation all day, every day, and,
if you decided to give something up for Lent, you need to deal with temptation
that much more from now until Easter.
But let’s take a good look
at our Old Testament story this morning. Because there’s more going on here
than just Eve’s temptation.
Our tradition has given us
one classical way to interpret this story. We call this story in Genesis, this
story of Eve taking a bite from that apple and handing one to her husband, too,
the story of “the Fall” of humanity. We attribute Original Sin, our nature of
not being able to avoid disobeying God, to this story. And since nearly the
beginning of Christianity itself, the forefathers of our faith have blamed Eve
for the state of the world being as it still is today—messed up.
John Wesley, the founder of what
became the United Methodist Church, more or less interpreted this story from
Genesis in that way. He described it like this:
1) “Unbelief begot pride”—Eve
didn’t take God’s warning to stay away from that one tree seriously, and
thought perhaps she knew better than God did about that fruit.
2) “Pride begot self-will”—Because
Eve thought she might know better, she did what she wanted instead of what God
wanted.
3) “Self-will begot foolish
desires”—Because Eve decided it would be okay to do what was right in her own
eyes, she came up with a very bad idea. She ate the fruit from the forbidden
tree, she shared it with Adam, and here we are today.[i]
Wesley was definitely right
here, and I think that if we took an honest look at a lot of our bad choices,
we’d see that we did just what Wesley described. We don’t listen to someone who
knows better—maybe God, or a parent, a teacher, law enforcement, a friend, a
doctor—because we decide we know something they don’t. Then we decide because
we know something they don’t that we can do what we want, and because we decide
we can do what we want, we come up with very bad ideas, and act on them. I don’t
know about you, but this pretty much sums up every reckless driving move I’ve
ever made, every time I’ve ever neglected to exercise as much as they say you
should, and every time I’ve ever spoiled my dinner by eating too many cookies
with my lunch. And I’m sure there’s worse decisions than these that all of us
have made because we think like this.
So the point here is pretty
clear—Eve, our ancestor, taught us all how to make some epically bad decisions,
and we’ve made them ever since.
Still, I’ve never thought
that it was quite fair that we’ve made out Eve to be such a bad person, or that
we’ve made her shoulder all the blame for the mistakes we make. I also don’t
think that this traditional read of the story of the Garden of Eden is the only
way we should interpret this classic story.
If you go to our Tuesday
morning Bible Study often, then you’ve heard me talk about this before, but
when I was in seminary my Old Testament professor shared with our class a
different way of looking at the story of Adam and Eve. My professor asked us to
consider, what if the story of Adam and Eve is less a story about the
beginnings of sin and evil, and more a story about what it’s like to grow up?
This is just one person’s idea, and you don’t need to agree with it, but just
think about it, because it’s a really compelling point. In the Garden of Eden,
Adam and Eve are in adult bodies, but live like children. Who walks around naked
and doesn’t feel embarrassed about it? Little kids. Who points at things, names
things, and talks to animals like it’s no big deal? Kids. Who lives rent-free,
doesn’t do any work, and eats whenever the food shows up? Kids. And who doesn’t
know the difference between right and wrong? Kids.[ii]
Like I said, you don’t need
to agree with all of that, but there’s no questioning when we read this story
from Genesis that when Eve and Adam ate the forbidden fruit and acted on their
ability to disobey God, there was something they lost—their innocence. And you
know, that once you lose that, you can never have it back. Adam and Eve never
knew a world before where someone might trick you into getting in trouble, or
where you need to work if you want to eat, or where you need to have babies and
raise them. But after this, they did.
But I’m going to add one
more idea here for your consideration—in this life, you really need to lose
your innocence in order to gain something much more valuable: knowledge.
As for Jesus—if you can
really say he ever had innocence, this morning’s Gospel story would be just
about the time in his life that he lost it. He’s a young man, and he was just
baptized by his cousin. Now, he’s already putting his faith to the test, in the
wilderness, for “forty days and forty nights”—what the Bible always says when
what it means is “a really, really
long time”.
You see, the moral of the
story here isn’t that you should try to remain naïve, and avoid ever being
around the evil in the world, or the things that tempt you. Rather, if you have
to be immersed in the rough parts of life, and if you have to be around things
and people that may lead you to make bad decisions, be like Jesus, and use the
things you’ve learned as a grown-up to help you make good choices.
While he’s fasting, while he’s
all alone, and while he’s likely in more pain than he’s ever been in his adult
life, Jesus relies on the Scriptures he’s known all his life to use these forty
days and nights to build his faith and character—even when he doesn’t have to,
and even when there’s someone right over his shoulder reminding him that he
really could do whatever he wants. Jesus responds to every single thing the
devil says to him with a quote from the Torah.
Like Jesus, we’re also on a
sort of spiritual pilgrimage for forty days and forty nights. We may not be
fasting during this Lenten season, and we may not be spending that time in
solitude, or in the wilderness. But we are spending this time in repentance,
thinking about what we’ve done wrong in the past, and how we’d like to be more
spiritually mature so that we can be ready for the incredible joy of Easter
morning. Let’s use this time that we have to grow in knowledge—knowledge of the
difference between good and evil, knowledge of God’s love, and knowledge that
what God wants for us really is best. May this Lenten season be for all of us a
time to know more about a life well lived.
Amen.
[i] I found this in the study notes in The Wesley Study Bible. Copyright 2009
from Abingdon Press of Nashville, TN—I found it in my seminary’s bookstore, but
you can also buy it from Cokesbury. I’ve used several different study Bibles in
preparing sermons, and this one is a must-read if you want to know more about
John Wesley’s teachings on a particular topic.
[ii] Special thanks to my Old Testament professor, Dr.
Mark Brummitt, for teaching me and my classmates this interpretation.
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