We heard two stories on this first Sunday in Lent, one taking place in a garden, the other in the wilderness. The garden is a place of lush life, the home of the first man and the first woman. Together they represent humankind, named, in Hebrew, after the soil from which we were made: earthlings, all of us.
“Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return,” we were reminded on Wednesday as we had ashes rubbed on our foreheads, and some of us heard echoes of the words spoken by the grave, where we commit the body to the ground, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. We are earthlings, we belong to the earth and to God our creator.
In the story from Genesis, three gifts are mentioned: The first is the bountiful garden that is our home and our purpose; we are here to serve its flourishing, to inhabit, explore and enjoy it. Our second gift is the freedom to eat of every tree. And the third gift is a command. The two are presented together in the first words of God addressed to humanity: “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.” Life as God intends it comes with limits. According to the story from the garden, to be human is to live with our God-given purpose, in God-given freedom, and within God-given limits.
Then there is another voice, asking a question: “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?” And what unfolds from there has, unlike any other conversation in Scripture, shaped and reshaped our views about moral freedom, men and women, sin, shame, guilt, sex and work. It’s a conversation that for hundreds of years has been heavily commented, annotated, and footnoted, and some of the commentary has not been life-giving, especially for women. In 1 Timothy 2:11-15, for example, we read:
Let a woman learn in silence with full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve, and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing, provided they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control.
The apostle seems to assume that his readers will agree when he confidently declares that “the woman was deceived” and that “Adam was not.” I’m not convinced. If deception did actually occur in the garden, the two of them together fell for it; Adam was there with her, after all, but he didn’t speak up until later when he became the first in a long line of many men to point the finger at Eve. And if Adam didn’t speak up in what has been characterized as such a critical moment in the relationship between God and humankind, one could make the argument that men should be the ones learning in silence rather than silence the voices of women.
Another footnote with a long afterlife identified the serpent with the devil, even though the story says that the serpent was just that, a serpent, one of the animals of the field God had made. It was a part of God’s creation, not some cosmic intruder bent on disruption. The serpent was crafty, yes, perhaps cunning, possibly wise, but not evil.
You may think that a talking snake is curious, but it’s not the first story you’ve heard that has talking animals in it, is it? I find it much more intriguing that this is the first conversation humans have that is not with God, but about God. In a way we’re witnessing the beginnings of theology. “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?” the serpent asked. No, of course not; we know that, and Adam and Eve know that. What we don’t know is if the crafty serpent knows it as well, and so we wonder if the gross overstatement in the question is merely an innocent mistake or a way to sow suspicion about God’s motives in establishing boundaries for human life.
The woman corrected the serpent, stating that it was only the fruit of the tree in the in middle of the garden that was forbidden, and adding that God said, “nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.”
“You will not die;” the serpent replied, “for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” The serpent tells the humans something God didn’t tell them, and so the word of the serpent puts the word of God in question. Did God keep something back? Why didn’t God tell them the whole truth about the matter? Does God really have their best interest at heart or is God jealously protecting divine privileges? Suddenly the words and motivations of God are in question along with the larger matter if the creator of life can be trusted when it comes to what makes for the flourishing of life. What will the humans do?
Here’s what they don’t do: They do not turn to God for answers, and they do not turn to each other to talk about the questions the serpent’s words have raised. Instead they turn to the tree and its promising fruit, and they take and eat in silence. And nobody dies. The serpent had told them the truth; perhaps not the whole truth, but it certainly had “correct information about the garden’s trees and the consequences of eating from them — information that God either did not know or did not reveal to the humans.”[1]
We are earthlings, created in and for relationship with the earth, with each other, and with God, but few of our relationships are simply programmed into our genetic code. Our relationships with other people and with God are complex, and they are rooted in trust. The story of the humans in the garden and the serpent allows us to think about what happens when mistrust and suspicion creep in: suddenly there’s estrangement, soon shame and blame thrive instead of joy, and life in the garden is put on a trajectory away from communion with God. Death creeps in—not in the form of mortality, our mortality is part of life—death creeps in in the breakdown of the relationships that make us who we are, make earth a garden, and make life what God intends it to be.
The other story this morning takes us to the wilderness. The forty days of Lent are patterned on Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness. It was the Spirit who led him there to be tested, immediately after his baptism. By the river, the voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, the Beloved,” and again, as in the garden, after God has spoken, there’s another voice. Jesus is famished, and this voice says, “Since you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.”
The voice belongs to the devil. Nothing is said where he came from, nothing is said of his looks or if he can be seen or smelled. What matters here—and perhaps the only thing that matters—is the fact that the devil speaks. And what he suggests is utterly reasonable: You’re hungry. You’re the Son of God. Go ahead, make yourself a little bread.
The wilderness is not a place of quiet retreat for Jesus. It’s a landscape for sorting out what voice to be attentive to, what voice to trust: the voice from heaven or the voice from who-knows-where-it-came-from.
Jesus responds, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’ ” Jesus doesn’t argue with the tempter; he simply states what he lives and what we are made to live. Bread is nutritious and delicious. Bread is good. Bread is essential, but a human being doesn’t live by bread alone. Jesus is famished, yet he doesn’t pay attention to his hunger; his attention is tuned to every word that comes from the mouth of God.
But the devil isn’t done yet, and he is quick: Speaking of God’s word, he says, consider Psalm 91. Jesus finds himself on the top of the temple and the devil quotes Scripture, chapter and verse:
He will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.
Since you are the Son of God, throw yourself down. Go ahead, live by God’s word and jump. Throw yourself into the arms of the angels. Consider the publicity you could get with a stunt like that. The whole world will know you. Show them who you are. Jump.
But Jesus doesn’t. “It is written, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’ ”[2]
Finally the devil takes Jesus to a very high mountain with a view of all the kingdoms of the world. “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” What’s at stake in this wilderness test is what kind of power rules the world: Is it the devil’s empire of one throne to rule them all, the dream behind every imperial dream and every imperial war, or is it the kingdom of God?
Jesus tells the devil to be gone, and he begins his ministry in Galilee, a servant of God’s reign. That was and is the point. Jesus’ response to every test was to refuse the tempter’s suggestion that he could be so much more than human—if he just stepped away from the relationships that made him who he was. But Jesus walked his path in complete trust and obedience to God.
The temptations didn’t end in the wilderness. Jesus had wilderness moments throughout his life, when he was exhausted, hungry, frustrated, tired, and lonely, but mistrust or suspicion never crept in, and he remained true to God, true to all of us, and true to all of creation. And the power of this faithful love broke the power of sin and death.
We are earthlings, created in the image of God, made for communion with God. We’re invited to live these forty days with less of what we don’t need and a little more of what we know we do. Call it a fast; some of it may become a habit for life. Less scrolling up and down screens, and more strolling under trees. Less spending and more giving. Less attention to voices that pull us away from God’s covenant of love, and more attention to the One who has made us and claimed us as beloved children. Have a blessed Lent.
[1] Cameron Howard https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/first-sunday-in-lent/commentary-on-genesis-215-17-31-7-3
[2] Deuteronomy 6:16