Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7

Matt 4:1-11

             The story commonly known as “The Fall of Man” in Genesis is so rich and colorful that if you let your imagination run with it, the possibilities of what it could be saying are almost endless.

             Certainly, people have done just that; they have turned their imaginations loose and have run wild with the Adam and Eve tale, and so have come up with an astounding assortment of wisdom that it teaches. An archbishop in England used the story to determine not only the year of the creation of the world (4004 B.C.), but also the time of year. It had to be in the fall, he said, when the apples were ripe. This was widely accepted for years, despite many flaws—the most glaring being that the story never says anything about an apple.

            Eve’s role in this story has used to prove the superiority of men over women, to show that women are incapable of self-discipline and good judgment, and so must be ruled by men. This was widely accepted, despite many flaws—the most glaring being that Eve at least demonstrates the ability to think, while Adam does not.

            The story has been used by theologians over the centuries to show how sin came into the world through the fault of two people. That we would all be living in perpetual joy and righteousness if only Adam and Eve had not blown it for everyone by giving in to sin. This has been widely accepted, despite many flaws—the most glaring of which is how does a conscious choice to sin suddenly become a permanent part of our genetic DNA.

 

            How do we navigate our way through this gold mine of imaginative possibilities to discover what God is really telling us in this story? With a lot of prayer and humility.

 

            The creators of our lectionary have given us a helpful way to understand this story. They have placed it in our yearly readings next to the story of Jesus being tempted in the wilderness. If we look at those two stories side by side, I think we find that each illuminates the other.

 

            The first thing to note about the Adam and Eve story is that Adam is the Hebrew word for “humankind.” Eve is a word meaning “living, breathing one.” In other words, in this story, Adam and Eve represent all human beings in the world—all who have ever lived and breathed, all who are alive, all who ever will live.

 

            These two people live in as perfect a place as you can imagine. They have everything they could possibly need in a garden rich beyond measure. They are free to use of it all, free to organize and create what they want from it. They live in peace and harmony with all of creation; they live in close proximity to God. In short, it just doesn’t get any better than this. This is the world as God envisioned it. This is the world that God planned for us to share with him.

 

            Of course, there some limitations in this Garden of Eden. We have to have a few ground rules so that everything doesn’t spin off into chaos. We need to understand that even though we can do whatever we want with this wonderful world, this is God’s universe, not ours. It is a gift, and it needs to be treated that way.

            Humankind needs to accept that God is who God is, and we are who we are. God has certain powers and wisdom and a few other traits that we do not. And that’s okay, because it’s all a gift, and we have everything we need, and we’re living in the paradise that God has given us. Not many rules or restrictions at all; just the most basic ones to make sure the whole thing runs the way it’s supposed to.

 

            Those few piddly, necessary rules are represented by the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The tree is not something God places in the center of the garden just to tempt Adam and Eve. It symbolizes that which separates humans from God. Notice that there isn’t an orchard full of forbidden fruit. It’s just a single tree. God designed the world for us so that there isn’t much standing between us and God. Just enough to keep the garden running the way it’s supposed to. God is willing to share all the rest.

 

            And what happens? Despite living in this paradise, in peace and contentment without a care in the world, the living, breathing ones are not satisfied. Why? Because they see that God has something that they don’t have. Instead of looking at all that they have, they focus on what they don’t have.

 

            In this story, the serpent is the one who calls this to their attention. The serpent is often interpreted to be the devil, although the story never says that. The serpent says, “Sure life is okay; but it could be even better. You don’t have to accept this role that God has provided for you, these limitations; you can do better.

            See that tree over there? Eat of it and you will be just like God. You won’t even need God. You can have what God has. You could probably run this whole paradise without God at all, without any rules accept what you feel like doing. That’s right. No rules. Complete freedom and power to do whatever you want.”

 

            The serpent represents that evil force—that instinct for survival that squeezes us into a ball until we say, “I’m just looking out for me. I don’t care about anyone else; I just want as much for myself as I can get. I don’t care if I have all that I need or if the garden works; if there is more to be had, I want it.”

 

            The Garden of Eden works only when everyone accepts their part in this paradise-- a role no more or less important than any other part of it. And that while God gives us great freedom to use the garden, the garden belongs to God.  

 

            The story asks the question, can humankind accept the terms of living in the garden or not? The answer, sadly, is no. Humankind cannot seem to understand what this garden of creation is all about. We cannot content ourselves with accepting the gift. We want to own that creation. We want what God has.  

 

            That failure lies at the root of all the problems in creation. It has destroyed the peace and prosperous living available to us. It has torn apart the garden. The story of Adam and Eve tells us why the world is the way it is. Because humankind does not accept the gift, does not accept their place, and instead wants to be God. When that happens, the garden disappears.

 

            The question is, as Stephen Stills asked so famously at Woodstock, “How do we get back to the garden?”  We keep trying and trying. But every time we get close, we see that forbidden fruit, and we just can’t seem to resist.

 

            God provides all that we need to enjoy this garden of earth. Just one basic rule: don’t go trying to amass it all for yourself. But instead of focusing on what we have, we can’t seem to resist going after that forbidden fruit.

 

            God allows us tremendous freedom to live our lives, to choose our direction, and experience life to the fullest. Just one basic rule: don’t exercise this freedom at the expense of others. But instead of appreciating what we have, we can’t seem to resist going after that forbidden fruit of doing what we want at the expense of others.

 

            God gives us the run of the garden and gives us dominion over it. Just one basic rule: remember that this is God’s garden. Instead of seeing what we have, we can’t seem to resist going after the forbidden fruit of acting like we own creation.

 

            We now come to the story of the Temptation of Jesus in the Wilderness. This is the story of the Garden of Eden, as God wanted it to be. God puts Jesus in this garden under the same conditions that he put Humankind in. In fact, he makes it a little harder. This is not a lush garden anymore; in some ways, it’s a barren wilderness. But God says to Jesus, it’s yours to enjoy. You are free to organize and make use of the resources. To live in peace and harmony with the world; to live in close proximity to God.

 

            Just a few ground rules so that everything isn’t chaos. Understand that even though you can do whatever you want with this wonderful world, this is God’s universe, not yours. It is a gift, and it needs to be treated that way.

            Jesus, you need to accept that God is who God is, and you are who you are as person in human form. God has certain powers and wisdom and a few other traits that you do not. And that’s okay, because you have everything you need, and you’re living in the world that God has given you. Not many rules or restrictions at all; just the basic ones to make sure the whole thing runs the way it’s supposed to.

 

            Can it work? It’s a crucial situation, because if Jesus cannot make this work, than it cannot work. Creation will have been just a pipe dream that never had a chance of surviving, and God’s grand experiment with humanity will have been proven a failure.

 

            In this story, you can almost see God sitting nervously on the edge of his seat as temptation enters the picture, in the form of Satan. And as temptation always does, it focuses not on the many gifts Jesus has been given, but only on that little bit of forbidden fruit.

 

            Jesus is hungry and the devil urges him, “Command these stones to become loaves of bread.” Forget everything else and feed your own hunger. Jesus recognizes the trap of self-indulgence. He recognizes the trap of trying to become God, with all God’s powers. Creation can’t work that way. He declines the forbidden fruit and instead spends his ministry feeding other people; those who, because of the weakness of Humankind, do not have access to the gifts of the garden.

 

            The devil then takes him to the holy city and onto a pinnacle of the temple. “You are the Son of God, a special person,” the devil says. “Indulge yourself. Show your power. Flex your muscles. Throw yourself down and enjoy the rush as the angels come down and swoop you up.”

 

            Jesus recognizes the trap of self-centeredness. He has been given powers to use. They are not his, but God’s. They are not for show. They are to be used in maintaining creation. He declines the forbidden fruit and instead spends his ministry among the powerless and the downtrodden; those who, because of the weakness of Humankind, do not have a voice in their own existence.

 

            The devil finally takes him to a high mountain and offers him the world. Offers him the entire garden. He can not just live in it; he can own it. He can take over for God.

            Jesus recognizes the trap of selfishness. The garden belongs to God; it is so much a part of God that it cannot thrive apart from God. It cannot work under any other management. He declines the forbidden fruit, and instead spends his ministry honoring the generous giver of the garden.

 

            Because he did that, the garden is saved.

 

            I remember being in the third grade when John Glenn went up into space, the first American ever to orbit the earth. We were watching the television reports in our classroom, when word came that the space capsule’s heat shield was loose. The heat shield was there to protect the capsule from the heat caused by the friction of reentering the earth’s atmosphere at such high speed.

            Commentators openly fretted about what could happen. That heat shield was all the protected Glenn from being incinerated by temperatures that would approach 3000 F. It turned out that the heat shield held, and Glenn made back it okay.

 

            But nearly 40 years later, the space shuttle Columbia ran into a similar problem. A piece of foam the size of a brief case broke off and damaged a small tile on the spacecraft. Upon reentry, that small exposure was enough to allow superhot gases to penetrate and destroy the spacecraft and everyone in it.

 

            The story of Adam and Eve is the story of Humankind trying to be God. Not satisfied with living in the garden of paradise, humans have tried to take it over. We continually violate the few rules designed that garden intact and prosperous.

 

            It turns out those rules are every bit as important as the heat tile on the Challenger. Breaking those rules are like casting aside the heat shield on our space capsule and saying, God doesn’t need these; we want to be like God. We don’t need that shield.

 

             From the Christian point of view, there is only one thing that has kept this world from burning up. Jesus offered himself as a heat shield. He was all that stood between the Garden of Eden and its destruction. On the cross of Calvary, he took searing heat of 3000 degree friction into himself so that we could land safely back in the Garden of God’s creation.

 

            Because he did that, the garden is saved.