Lent 1, Year A – February 10, 2008       A Lenten Allegory

Genesis 2:

St. Giles Church, Northbrook IL – The Rev. Cynthia J. Hallas

Their first memories were of a beautiful garden. 

No, the garden went beyond beautiful; it was – paradise. 

            Flowers of every sort and color;

Tall, stately trees, short grasses, all green with life;

huge beasts, tiny insects;

lions whose deep-throated yet gentle growls sounded in contrast to the bleat of sheep and goats;

the cries of birds, the high-pitched squeak of tiny rodents. 

All of them living in harmony and peace.

The man and woman reveled in it all; just as each reveled in the beauty of the other. 

And the food! 

            Delicious fruits, sweet to the taste and juicy;

            vegetables, crisp and fresh and all for the taking.  

And if the Creator who had put them in the midst of such glorious beauty expected some upkeep in return – well, that seemed a small price to pay.

But for all that was available to them in the garden, there was one tree –

            tall and majestic, positioned in the center of the garden where it was always in view and from

            which hung the most luscious, round, red fruit. 

The Creator had named it “The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil” and it fascinated them – after all, what did they know about “good” and “evil”?  

But it fascinated them even more because the Creator had forbidden them to eat of that luscious, round, red fruit: “You may eat to your heart’s content and your appetite’s satisfaction of any other fruit in this garden,” the Creator said, “only obey me in this one thing.  If you do not, you will die.”  And given all that they had, this act of obedience, too, seemed a small price to pay.

But as they passed the tree one day, they noticed a creature they had not seen before. 

            It was long, slender, without limbs yet possessed of a certain elegance;

            its skin was smooth and slippery and it slithered from branch to branch on that special tree. 

It seemed to beckon to them and when it spoke, it was with soft, seductive, sibilant tones. 

When it spoke, they found it impossible to listen to anything else. 

The woman approached first,             the man following closely on her heels. 

“So,” said the serpent             (for that is what it was called), “here you are at last.  Why have you been avoiding this beautiful tree and its delicious fruit?” 

“We are forbidden to eat of it!”  the woman exclaimed.  “Our Creator has told us we will die if we eat of it!”

“Die?” the serpent looked perplexed, exasperated, even slightly annoyed.  “Die?  You won’t die – you’ll be just like your Creator.  You’ll know everything.”  The serpent smiled, but because of their innocence the man and woman failed to see the malevolence in that smile.  “Besides,” the serpent continued, “you work so hard in here.  Surely you deserve the best the garden has to offer.” 

They looked at each other, and considered: they had listened to the voice of their Creator all this time, had done everything asked of them but now, here, physically present in front of them, was a creature who made them promises far more attractive than any they had heard from that other Source. 

Die? The man and woman looked at each other again, suddenly realizing that the word ‘die’ had no meaning for them.  

The serpent slithered around the trunk of the tree, coiling itself close to the piece of fruit nearest them.  It hung low on the branch, ripe for the picking.  “So - what are you waiting for?” he whispered. 

And with that, they grabbed for the fruit, the woman first but the man just as eagerly; they tore it open and ate of its flesh while the sweet, red, sticky juice splashed their faces and ran down their chins.  Why had their Creator denied them this joy?  Surely that had been a mistake.

The changes happened immediately. 

            The sky darkened;

            the growls of the large beasts suddenly sounded menacing,

            while the bleats and cries of the smaller animals now expressed fear. 

The man and woman looked at each other and where before they had beheld only beauty, they now saw only shame. 

And the taste of the fruit, a taste that had been so sweet just a moment ago, was suddenly bitter and unbearable in their mouths.

And they heard the voice of their Creator: Why have you disobeyed me? There was anger in the voice but there was also a deep sadness. 

Then came the excuses, the finger pointing, the blame game, but all for naught.  And they understood all too much, and all too well.  They understood what it means to die.  They understood that never again would they call paradise ‘home’.  The life, the perfect life they had known disappeared, but the bitter, unbearable taste of that fruit remained in their mouths.

The season of Lent reminds us that we all have that bitter taste in our mouths.  All of us, at some point and on some level and more often than not over and over again, have demonstrated our unwillingness to be the creatures God created us to be.  That is our ultimate undoing: the sin of the presumption of wanting to be like God.  We act it out in close relationships: family, friends, the workplace.  We act it out on a global scale: war, economic injustice and imbalance, imperialism, genocide.  It’s the sin of which Jesus was tempted by Satan: the sin of putting God to the test, of wanting for ourselves power and authority that can only be used rightly in God’s hands.  In resisting that temptation, Jesus in his humanity set us an example.

If you follow farther in the story of Adam and Eve, you know that eventually their son Cain murdered his brother Abel after an argument the two had had.  As Cain left home to journey east of Eden God put a mark on Cain’s forehead.  But it was not a mark of condemnation; it was a mark of protection. 

We begin the season of Lent with a mark on our forehead as well.  It is a sobering, though fleeting, reminder of our mortal nature – the fact that one day our physical bodies will return to the same dust that the first human beings were created out of.  We mark ourselves that way, to remind us of who and what we are.  But God has also marked us in another way.  At baptism, we are marked on our foreheads with another sign, the sign of the Spirit: “You are sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism, and marked as Christ’s own forever.” 

Forever.  We need those marks – we need both of them.  The season of Lent, for all its sober penitence and self-examination, for all its self-denial and fasting, is also an opportunity – an opportunity to return to God, to re-establish or deepen our relationship with God, to claim or re-claim our identities as followers of Christ.  So let’s take that opportunity, accept God’s invitation, begin that journey again, here, today.