Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7 Psalm 32 Romans 5:12-19 Matthew 4:1-11
Created for Community
by Sherman Hesselgrave
Human beings were created for relationship—relationship with one another, and relationship with God. When God realized it was not right that Adam should be alone, God set about to create a companion for him—‘companion,’ a word whose roots are in sharing bread together. The stories from Genesis and Matthew that we hear again today are foundational stories for us. The story of Jesus’ temptation in Matthew is Shakespeare’s reference when, in The Merchant of Venice, Antonio says to Bassanio: “The devil can cite scripture for his purpose.” The stories are foundational because they show us how our relationships with God and others can be distorted or corrupted by our everyday human desires.
We have heard the recent news from Uganda of the passage of draconian anti-homosexual legislation, and we know that some of the consultants who helped to craft the legislation were American Christians with a long record of working for legal restrictions for gay people in their own country. A modern example of citing scripture for one’s own purpose, but violates the relationships of people who have chosen companions of the same sex.
During the Inquisition, Jews, who already had an everlasting covenant with God through Abraham, were nonetheless threatened with torture and death if they did not convert to Christianity, because the Christian magisterium found biblical warrant to do so.
Biblical texts continue to be used to deny women status in some churches around the world, and despite the crescendo of cries for justice, their relationships with the holy are diminished by their marginalization.
I was delighted to see that Joseph Boyden’s The Orenda won the Canada Reads competition this week, if only for the fact that many more people will now be engaged in the ongoing conversation about reconciliation with First Nations people who have suffered for centuries from colonial policies that found justification, in part, in the Christian scriptures.
I think we can agree that our pedigree is full of examples of the scriptures being cited to support agendas distorted by human fear and desire. Both the Garden of Eden temptation story and Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness remind us that, because of the radical freedom God has given us—people created in God’s likeness and image—we are presented choices every day that will have consequences for our relationships and for the world.
The temptation of Adam and Eve is an archetypal story that opens itself up to many readings. If I think back to my Sunday school experience, I would say that the emphasis of the story was obedience to God, and the consequence was the fall from grace occasioned by this “original sin.” A few decades later, however, I read Matthew Fox’s Original Blessing, and found a new reading of this text that emphasized the inherent goodness of all of God’s creation rather than the hereditary fallenness that Augustine of Hippo and other early church fathers persuaded the church to embrace as doctrine.
Having lived with this story for a lifetime, and having engaged the text through the eyes of others, I experience it with different eyes now than I did as a child. For one thing, the story concludes with an awareness of vulnerability. “Then the eyes of both were opened,” the text says of Adam and Eve, “and they knew that they were naked.” When I think of all the things that have been done in the world because of perceptions of vulnerability—from the Cold War and nuclear proliferation to the latest NSA spying on everyone; from the treatment of women and sexual minorities to the fears of inter-racial marriage; or from the response of corporations to the Occupy Wall Street movement—I see the power of fear to tempt us to do the worst things to one another.
When we desire something that will give us power or knowledge and diminish our vulnerability, perhaps we are tempted to cut corners, to take a bite out of the fruit that promises to make one wise. We read that cheating in school is rampant, competition for the top slots is so keen that some people will do anything to get ahead. But what good does it do to get a good grade because someone slipped you the answers to the test when you have to solve a problem down the road in the real world and lack the necessary competence. The newspapers are full of stories of incompetence that have resulted in injury or death; how many of these could have been prevented?
There is an old definition of ‘Sin’ with a capital S as “that which separates us from God.” Sometimes what separates us is chasing after other gods: like addictions to money, power, drugs, or sex. Or maybe it is narcissism or some other ‘ism’ that is a barrier to relationship with God and with others. Every day is a test. As Adam and Eve and Jesus were tested, we too are tested. Do we choose relationship and community or do we let our fears and desires distort our choices in favour of shielding our vulnerabilities or maintaining our advantage?
We were created for relationship, and Jesus invited us to be companions at the banquet of life. We reenact that invitation every week in the Eucharist when we gather around the table to be nourished with God’s very self in the bread and wine that gives us strength and resolve to face the testing of each day, knowing that, despite all of our failings, God desires to be in relationship with each of us, to accompany us on our journey, and to equip us to face every challenge we encounter.
