Today’s readings focus on the result of humans surrendering to the temptation to think and act in opposition to the way of the Lord. Sin comes from misplaced love where self overtakes all other considerations.
Genesis 2:7-9; 3:1-7 Today’s extract from Genesis contains some of the richest symbolism in the Bible. The man in this passage is fashioned out of the dust of the earth – a logical conclusion from the fact that the human body disintegrates after death and returns to dust (Genesis 3:19). The Hebrew makes the connection clear as it reads: God formed a man (adam) of dust from the ground (adamah). There is a sobering symbol here that humans do well to remember their origins.
The symbolism of the tree is fairly obvious also. Tasting its fruit represents becoming aware of good and evil by personal experience. Before they had tasted this fruit the couple were completely innocent because they had not experienced both good and evil. So far, they were in a garden of delight that represented harmony and original wholeness. Remember, the couple in the garden are symbolic of you and me and all humankind.
The snake presents the couple with a very attractive option, to become like God. This looked like a perfect way to self-improvement, independence and the gaining of wisdom – all worthy ideals. But it also meant going against God’s wishes, and therein lay the rub. This part of the story shows how subtle and insidious temptation is. Notice how the snake convinces the couple that they will be better off after experiencing the darker side of human behaviour.
Notice, by the way, that the snake is never anything but a snake. There is no suggestion that it represents Satan. God curses it as a snake, not as a spirit figure (Genesis 3:14-15). It is that dramatic individual that comes in from offstage to suggest to the main characters something that had not previously occurred to them. The first reference to the snake in Genesis being a figure of Satan occurs in the Wisdom of Solomon, written in the first century before Christ.
This episode is about humans becoming morally self-aware
Having done the forbidden deed, the couple were bowled over by the realisation that they had alienated themselves from the Supreme Goodness. This did not bring satisfaction but only intense shame, symbolised by nakedness, that manifested itself in the blame game – and blame only corrodes relationships. They were now exposed and made every effort to cover their nakedness, not just with clothing but with excuses, lies, pretence and the avoidance of responsibility. The episode is about humans becoming morally self-aware and realising that human life has its highs with knowledge, freedom and fulfilling relationships, and its lows with suffering, shame, conflict and damaged relationships.
This story was written symbolically and needs to be interpreted symbolically. It is about all of us. We are all included in the symbolic names of Adam (from the adamah) and Eve (ḥawwah = life/life-giver). It describes the disastrous effect of alienation that comes from disordered choices.
Divine graciousness offers us a rebirth
Psalm 51 The anonymous poet expresses a deep regret for his past sins. When he contemplates the graciousness of God his shame haunts him to the point of being obsessive. His sentiments echo those of the prophet Jeremiah and the circle of Ezekiel who saw humanity facing a brick wall of guilt and the only way past it was God’s offer of a rebirth from sin and guilt simply through divine graciousness. Human effort was virtually useless. Divine graciousness was the only way out.
Romans 5:12-19 Paul is coming from much the same point of view as the psalmist, only his
focus is on the love of God that embraced and reconciled humanity through the self-sacrifice of the Son, Jesus Christ. He takes a global view of human history and contrasts Adam and Christ as two model figures. In these verses Paul is using Adam to denote humankind. Adam is an ‘everyman’ character that represents all of us – ‘because everyone has sinned.’
The ambiguity in Paul’s thought is that he then reads the Genesis story in the same way that traditional Jewish tradition reads it, namely, by reflecting theologically on it to make sense of the human experience of sin and death. In classical rabbinic tradition Adam was a real individual and was the first person to sin. His sin brought mortality into the human condition. As a result, all humans are born with the inclination towards both good and sin.
In today’s reading Paul highlights the fact that Jesus Christ has given humanity the free gift of being able to attain life and be reconciled with God.
Matthew 4:1-11 This incident has all the overtones of the temptations experienced by the people in the desert under Moses’ leadership after their exodus from Egypt. These were temptations to turn from God and embrace other deities.
The setting follows on from the end of Matthew 3 where Jesus has a Spirit experience after John immersed him in the Jordan. Following the prophetic tradition Jesus goes into retreat to reflect on his experience and to discern the inspiration he is having to follow, in some way or other, the direction of John. His options appear to be: go back to Nazareth and live a quiet life or launch out, like John, and publicly declare his convictions about the reign of God and what it means.
A short list of Israel’s failures
Satan puts three tests to Jesus that respond to charges that were later made by his opponents. First to turn stones into bread – a fair temptation since he had been fasting. Jesus responds with verses from Scripture and dismisses the temptation. This is Matthew’s way of saying Jesus in no magician. And yet his opponents will say that he is using magic from Satan to cure people. Instead of having faith in God the Israelites grizzled in the desert because they had no bread. That was a failure on their part.
Next, Jesus is tempted to jump from the top of the temple. This might strike us as a huge ‘as if’, but Jesus responds to Satan with a ‘forget it!’ and refers to the Israelites’ blundering by putting God to the test with their discontent and whingeing in the desert.
Lastly, Jesus is tempted with power over all the empires of the world if he was to worship Satan. Again, Jesus gives him the flick and reinforces the conviction that only the Lord God is to be worshipped. This reminds us of the Israelites who worshipped the golden calf that Aaron, brother of Moses, set up for them.
Matthew is out to show that Jesus passes his test with flying colours where Israel under Moses failed. He gave us a picture of a typical Jewish discussion where both sides quote Scripture to lend authority to their arguments. Jesus is quoting from Deuteronomy. This is no doubt Matthew’s way of giving his mostly Jewish community, in the 80s of the 1 st century, a scriptural background for responding to Jewish scholars of their day.
We are seeing in today’s readings the process and effect of temptation in the lives of human beings. Where the first Adam fails the test, Christ as the second Adam comes through with distinction. Israel in the desert fails and Jesus as the new Israel overcomes the force of evil. We are the result of our habits. Developing and practising good habits is ultimately satisfying.
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When written in Chinese the word crisis is composed of two characters. One represents danger and the other represents opportunity.
John F. Kennedy
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What do you call Old MacDonald’s Farm manager?
The C-I-E-I-0
by Laurie Woods