Genesis 2:7-9; 3:1-7 Romans 5:12-19 Matthew 4:1-11

Popular understanding of today’s lectionary passage from Genesis typically focuses on the theme of human disobedience toward the divine command against eating the fruit of, or even touching, “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” in the center of the mythic garden called Eden. This entire passage is often referred to as “The Fall” of humanity, i.e., the beginning of sin in the created universe. The serpent, described as “the most cunning of all animals,” is typically presumed to be none other than the devil in animal guise. If all this satisfies you and your spiritual life, then please continue with such understanding. However, it the entire story seems just a bit too simplistic (sort of like the ancient Greek legend of Pandora’s Box) for explaining all moral evil in the world (moral evil is that evil caused by human agency), then let me propose another way of interpreting the cast of characters and their actions in this mythical, but extraordinarily instructive and inspired, biblical drama.

Indeed, this story, like so many others in the first eleven chapters of Genesis, is an ancient “myth” the primary purpose of which is to wrestle with the more important mysteries among some of the observable realities in the human tribal societies of the day (i.e., that of the ancients). The story is an answer to the question, “From where did sin come?” A modern and intellectually sophisticated interpretation for this story is that sin comes from the misuse of the knowledge of good and evil. Indeed, Eve and Adam are cast as (for literalists) not only the first human beings to exist, but also the first to possess a conscious awareness of their moral responsibilities. The “cunning” serpent is not a personification of the devil (itself a mythic personification of the source of all moral evil) so much as a personification of a mischievous tempter which all thoughtful persons encounter in life when they have knowledge, motive, means and opportunity to cross the boundaries of acceptable society, and to break social customs and accepted moral practices. Indeed, Eve and Adam can be labeled “disobedient,” in the sense that they deliberately disregarded the moral directive from a higher authority than themselves. That the story originated in and was refined by ancient societies which were culturally patriarchal explains why it was Eve, the woman, who made the original (disobedient) decision after engaging the serpent, examining the fruit, and weighing the issue at hand. However, rather than simplistically laying blame for all human sinfulness on the mythic shoulders of Eve and Adam, let us hear this lesson as one about ourselves, i.e., as modern believers! Indeed, many people sin and cause tremendous destruction by disregarding and breaking social customs and religious expectations. But, well-informed and well-educated people also sin and destroy, and they do so in rather sophisticated manners. After all, it takes some deliberate thought to tell significant lies. It takes effort and cunning to steal and cheat. It takes hatred (towards others and one’s self) to subvert trust and to foster fear among one’s fellows, constituents and members of one’s own tribe, group or neighborhood. On a positive note, how many times in history has “breaking the law” of social custom or the legal-political government turned out to be a noble and constructive experiment?! Questioning, investigating, and discovery have often been “against the law” in societies, institutions and organizations. Some days, this seems true even today, even in America! The metaphor for the ancients was that “the knowledge of good and evil” was the fruit of a mythical tree in the mythical garden (Eden) populated by our mythical first parents. Myths are not necessarily untrue; they are often stories by which truth is conveyed in profound and memorable ways, but in ways which require some serious personal effort to perceive beyond the surface level of the story. It is indeed the very knowledge of good and evil which provides the means for sin and wisdom! Certainly every good person is at some stage in life tempted to sin. We need not encounter a talking serpent, but the more serious temptations to sin (parallel to what Jesus would say in the Gospels is “unclean”) come from within the person’s character. The voice is one’s own; the mischievousness can be cute and funny or evil and destructive. In either extreme (or anywhere along the continuum of temptation’s seriousness), it is one’s own personal responsibility to wrestle with and against temptation. A well-educated Gospel believer is sufficiently aware and practiced so as to analyze, engage and discern one’s way though temptation. Sometimes the temptation is morally neither black nor white, but full of moral gray area. Some behaviors formerly considered immoral or sinful have, through significant evolution in circumstances over time become quite acceptable, even virtuous. For example, while it is usually very wrong to cut a human person with a knife, a scalpel in the hands of a competent surgeon in the appropriate hospital operating theater with a deserving and consenting patient is not a tool of destruction or evil. It was not always so in Western society. Until medical science evolved (with a certain amount of risk and unintended destruction along the way) most such surgery was prohibited by both Church and civil law. It was often considered a serious crime to attempt such surgery in ages past, and for good reason, i.e., people tended to die from the ignorance which surrounded such “mutilation” of the human body. It is the very messy evolutionary history of medical science which allows people today to willingly consent to “go under the knife” for heart by-pass surgery! What was once sinful has become morally acceptable, even if somewhat expensive!

In today’s great and profound mythic story of “the Fall,” it is much too easy to interpret Eve’s acceptance of temptation as to simply “be like gods”! Rather, let us read the story with particular attention to the fact that Eve “... saw that the tree was good for food, pleasing to the eyes, and desirable for gaining wisdom.” Good food, beauty, and wisdom are usually seen to be important goods and goals, not merely God’s protected treasures. In fact, food, beauty and wisdom were very much women’s domain in ancient, patriarchal society! Only if we believe that God jealously guarded “the knowledge of good and evil” as divine treasure alone must we conclude that Eve (and her faithful, if cowardly, accomplice, Adam) was clearly disobedient to God. Indeed, knowledge is power, whether used for good or for ill. But, we also must wonder why disobey God if Eve and Adam already lived in idyllic paradise? Eden could not have become better! She and Adam were already immortal, for death only entered the created world with their sin as we hear in today’s second reading from Paul’s missive to the Romans.

Looking ahead to the Easter hymn, the Exultet, some six weeks from now, we will hear the cantor sing out “Oh happy fault! Oh necessary sin of Adam!” The great hymn of Paschal victory asserts that reality requires us to engage the complexities of life including even life’s more sinful and darker facets! Sin – and the evil that prompts it – when appreciated from a sophisticated and healthy theological perspective is a necessary part of reality! Think on that for a while!

Thus, reality – knowledge of life and death, beauty and wisdom – demands our fullest engagement in life. Even Jesus announced that as part of his Gospel message (cf. John 10:10). Paul reflected on the mythic human revolution and evolution from obedient-but-ignorant-complacency-in-perpetual-bliss to the messy and mortal reality of complicated-but-informed-and-responsible-life. He even rejoiced in it. Among Paul’s many salvific insights is that it was the obedient fidelity of Jesus to God in embracing the reality of the cross that made ultimate and universal salvation the most important event in world history. When he wrote “the many will be made righteous” he asserted that God’s generous Grace has made the human race worthy of God’s infinite love and mercy. Salvation is ours because God is our savior!

The Gospel passage is a ritual expression of how evil, dramatized here in the character of the devil, tried to subvert even the person of the Savior, Jesus the Christ. Physical appetite, pride and greed were experiences which even Jesus had to endure. He had just recently been revealed as God’s Son in Matthew’s Gospel narrative of his baptism just before this series of temptations (Matt 3:13-17). The temptations of Jesus offer much consolation to us who encounter our own temptations. As what might lightly be called a “good sport,” even Jesus, the designated Son of God and Savior, endured temptations as each of us does. Likewise, he endured unjust death, however undeserved his death was.

Lent is designed to be a joyful, annual, liturgical season of personal engagement and renewal. There is no part of life which we believers are unable to encounter wrapped in confidence of God’s saving Grace. That same Grace through which Jesus was completely obedient to God is the Grace by which we live our daily lives, lives full of hope that God will help us persevere, even and especially, in the knowledge of good and evil.

Listen, think, and pray! Blessed and joyful Lent to you!