Lent 1A
February 26, 2023
Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7
Matthew 4:1-11
INTRODUCTION
On this first Sunday of Lent, we always hear the same story from the Gospel: the story of Jesus being tempted in the wilderness, or desert. Matthew’s telling of this story is especially colorful – we get to hear what exactly the temptations were, how Satan uses scripture to try to lure Jesus away from trust in God, and how Jesus rebuffs him. To situate you in this story, recall that Jesus has just before this been baptized. A voice from heaven has called him the beloved Son. Now, still dripping from his baptism, the Spirit leads Jesus into the desert for 40 days, during which he fasts and prays, and at the end of it he is tempted by the “adversary,” the devil. And from here, Jesus will begin his ministry. This 40 days in the wilderness is the impetus for our 40-day Lent, where we, too, spend intentional time preparing our hearts, often through fasting and prayer, for the new life that comes with the resurrection. (And if you’ve never given something up – be it a type of food, or a habit – or taken on a prayer practice for Lent, it is not too late to try this year!)
Another standard Lenten disciple that prepares us for new life in Christ is study – and this year, we will be engaging in that especially through our Lenten theme, “Ask.” Some of the questions we’ll engage are yours – we’ll explore those in Sunday Bible studies (I hope you’ll come today!). And we will also find questions a-plenty in our readings during this season! There are some obvious ones today, but there are also many questions beneath the surface. As you listen today, listen for both the spoken and the unspoken questions present in the text. Let’s listen.
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| Adam and Eve Hide From God, by Grace Rehbaum, age 7 |
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Anyone who has spent time with young children knows that they are full of questions – both sublime and ridiculous, sometimes hilarious, and some are downright insightful. Here are some that I have heard lately:
• Why are they called goose bumps?
• Why did people invent wine and beer?
• Why does God let us get hurt?
• Do mommies and daddies have a choice about whether or not they have a baby?
• Do tweenagers take baths or showers?
At my kids’ ages, most of the questions are fairly innocent. They are mostly just gathering information and trying to understand their world. But as they have gotten older, I have noticed their questions getting deeper, and more complex. I have started noticing different motivations. Sometimes they are seeking safety or assurance – like when Grace recently asked if we would still live in our house after she moves out, so she can come back to visit and recall all of her precious memories. Sometimes they are trying to make sense of their big emotions or their fears – like when we encountered a man on the subway in NY City last week who was not in his right mind and spewing all manner of hateful words, and we all felt a little scared. “Why was he saying those things?” Sometimes, they just want to know that they are safe and loved – we are frequently asked, “Do you love me? How much?”
The evolution of their questions has shown how multi-faceted questions can be, how many different purposes they can serve. Questions can serve simply to gather information. Or, they may be used rhetorically to prove a point, a tactic St Paul often uses. Like, “Shall we continue in sin in order than grace may abound? By no means!”
But in light of today’s readings, I’m especially interested in the role questions play in our relationships. Questions have the power to build and deepen a relationship, but they also have the power to divide and deceive. We can see examples of both in our reading from Genesis. Let’s take a closer look at how questions function in this text.
First, where we begin: Adam and Eve live happily in the garden, and want for nothing. They have no reason not to trust the God who made them and provides for them. God has given them a bounty – every tree in the garden is theirs to eat from except one, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. At this point, you see, the humans don’t know good from evil because there is no evil, only goodness. They live in blissful ignorance; the thought questioning anything has never crossed their minds.
Enter the serpent, the craftiest of God’s creation. His first words to the woman are a question: “Did God say you shall not eat from any tree in the garden?” It’s worth pondering: what is the purpose or intention behind this question? Do we think the serpent is aiming to bond or connect with Eve? Is he gathering information? Does he really want to know and understand about the lives of the humans in the garden? Is he trying to help?
Or, is he going into this exchange with a different intention – an intention to deceive, divide, or confuse?
Well, it sure doesn’t seem like the snake is trying to buddy up with our dear Eve. It sounds much more like a set-up, a trap intended to disrupt the blissful innocence of the humans, who have until now been utterly trusting of and reliant upon God – not unlike a very young child is on their parent, whose love and providence they never question. The serpent’s next move, after Eve echoes back the boundary God had set, shows the serpent’s intention to sow distrust, doubt and fear. He opens up to the humans a reality of which they were previously unaware, contradicting what God had said. “You will not die,” he says, “for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Thinking this sounds like a pretty good thing (and wouldn’t God want this for them?), Eve and Adam both eat of the glittering fruit. Their eyes are opened, and they realize how exposed, naked, and vulnerable they are. When their loving parent comes searching for them, for the first time, they feel a need to hide.
The serpent’s question, asked so seemingly innocently, has sown division between God and humanity. Questions can do this, driving a wedge into our most important relationships – those we have with God, and those we have with one another. “What were you thinking?” “How could you do this?” “How can you vote for someone like that?” “Is that really how you’re going to do this?” In questions like these, the asker already knows the answer, or thinks they do, and is, like the serpent, trying to sow or show a separation between beings.
But these are not the questions that God asks us. My favorite part of this story is that when the humans are so divided from God that they begin putting physical barriers between them and God (first fig leaves, and then the branches of their hiding place), God comes looking for them – not in the way of an aggressor, but in the way that a caring parent comes knocking on the door of their pained child’s bedroom, hoping to learn what troubles them. “Where are you?” God asks. Not because God doesn’t know, but because he wants them to know he has noticed this new separation, and cares enough to draw close. The man divulges that for the first time, they felt exposed, and afraid of their loving parent. Again, God knows this already, but asks more questions to give the humans a chance to come clean, to draw close to God once again.
This exchange could certainly be read in the voice of an authoritarian God: “Have you done what I specifically commanded you not to do?! What have you done?!” But I don’t read it this way. Instead, it makes me think of the many similar exchanges I have had with my own kids, in which they have had some altercation, and I already know exactly what happened, but instead of laying down the law and jumping to discipline, I first ask them, “Can you tell me what happened?” giving each of them a chance to come clean, and tell me not what I think happened, but what happened from their perspective. They may very well still get a consequence – so do Adam and Eve – but before the consequence comes an opportunity to reconnect with the loving parent, the source of life.
This is how God is with us, even when we continue to find ways to separate ourselves from God. The absolution we heard this morning during the confession, and that we will hear throughout Lent, is based on this Genesis text, and God’s relentless efforts to draw closer when we would wander. “Even when we sin,” we heard, “God does not accuse. God only asks what we have done so we can set down our guilt. And God only asks where we have gone because God wants to bring us back.” Ours is a God who cares deeply about relationship with us. We are surrounded by questions meant to divide, but God’s questions draw us in. They give us a space to lay down our load, our guilt. They assure us that we are loved.
Next week we will hear the most famous biblical expression of God’s desire to draw close: “God so loved the world that he gave his only son, so that all who believe in him may not perish, but have eternal life.” As we encounter a world bent on dividing, and the various temptations that would draw us from God’s trustworthiness and love, may we also recognize that where the world divides, God draws close, and closer still.
Let us pray… Loving Parent, in a world bent on dividing, help us to ask questions that bond, that draw us closer in relationship to you and to others. Then, grant us ears and hearts ready to truly listen. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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