Sermons and Prayers

Sermon Lent 1 – 5th March 2017 by Eleanor Zuercher

Genesis 2:15-17 and 3:1-7; Matthew 4:1-11

Temptation in the Garden and Temptation in the Wilderness

It struck me as both interesting and hugely satisfying to put these two stories together – as soon as you do, you see that they are mirror images of each other. It is no accident that Milton tackled both events, the first, of course, in “Paradise Lost”, and his later and shorter poem on the Temptations in the Wilderness which he tellingly entitled “Paradise Regained” – if you’re after a good long poetic soak, I can highly recommend both. The modern view is to accept both stories generally not as literal truth, but as important stories, perhaps as parables, illustrating a more important spiritual truth than the story itself might suggest. And that seems to me to be fair enough.

Let’s look at the similarities first. Both are stories about temptation and both feature the devil as the tempter; both feature a dialogue between tempter and temptees (and contrasting the two sets of dialogue is most revealing); and both result in a very profound change for the persons tempted.

It is the differences between the two stories, though, that are most revealing. First of all you could hardly pick more diametrically opposed settings Eden is a paradise, green, abundant, fresh, unspoiled and full of a luscious creation – a place of plenty - while the Wilderness is hard, dry and sparse, difficult to live in, and Jesus finds himself famished after his 40 days. I suppose the setting for Jesus’ story could be regarded as a direct consequence of Adam’s – man fallen out of grace now inhabits a desert (literal and figurative) instead of a paradise.

Then there are the main characters – the people who are tempted - Adam is a god-like man. He and Eve as the only humans must have loomed large over all creation, entrusted as they were with free run of Eden and dominion over it on condition that they obeyed one tiny little rule. Jesus, on the other hand, although he is Man and God together in one person, seems dwarfed by the vastness of the wilderness – just a man on his own in a hostile environment. Indeed instead of seeming all-powerful, he is determined to refuse any such dominion as Adam has or desires. Adam fails the test; Jesus passes.

At first glance the temptations seem similar only in respect of Jesus first temptation – I suppose the devil only needs to offer Adam and Eve one little push and they’re gonners – maybe he had some extra ones lined up in case he needed something tougher. But in fact, that one temptation and the reasons Adam and Eve fell so spectacularly encompasses all the temptations Jesus resisted. Consider why Adam and Eve might have succumbed. The temptation to eat the fruit was gastronomic – they didn’t eat because they were hungry, as Jesus was tempted to, but perhaps to see what it tasted like – after all, they’d had a taste of everything else in the garden – we might label this as gluttony. Jesus’ corresponding temptation was to eat at need – much harder to resist – but he just turns the need away by focusing on a greater need – God’s word.

Adam and Eve were also tempted by the possibility of equality with God if they ate the fruit – they had ideas above their station. Perhaps they wanted praise for or recognition of their status as the crowning glory of God’s creation. This is what Jesus rejects when he turns down Satan’s suggestion that he leap from the temple. This is a traditional interpretation, but I wonder if mixed in with this there might also be the suggestion that Adam, in particular, took the fruit as a gesture of solidarity with Eve – to bind himself to her and prove that he stood alongside her. His mistake was in choosing obedience to Eve rather than God – love of Eve rather than love of God. Jesus on the other hand chooses adherence to God’s will rather than what his followers, desperate for the overthrow of Roman occupation, and the conviction that this was where salvation lay, at times urged on Jesus. A vainglorious display such as the devil suggests would have bound an army to him which could have achieved what seekers of the Messiah dreamed of. But I think his refusal also expresses a solidarity with humankind – instead of revealing himself as God Almighty, He elects to walk the human path, to do the work that He can as a man rather than throwing thunderbolts around as a god.

Finally Adam and Eve ate the fruit out of a desire for the power of knowledge – this is avarice. They have already been given everything they could possibly want, but they still want more. All the devil needs to do is to insinuate that there is something they lack, and they immediately want it. They are told that they lack a knowledge which would give them God-like power. This is echoed by Jesus being tempted with power over the kingdoms of the world – he might have gained an empire – and the Roman emperors of the time were worshiped as gods - but it would have been a flimsy imitation of God’s power. Jesus could see past its attractiveness and understand that it was just a temptation to want something which was not part of God’s plan.

The consequences of the stories are also interesting to contrast. Adam and Eve’s fall results in them running away and trying to hide from God. They seem to have suddenly become painfully self-aware and start to cover up parts of their bodies which somehow seemed more shameful than others. However perhaps we can infer a similar revelatory effect on Jesus. Just as Adam and Eve begin to understand who and what they are, (as well as to be able to contrast it with what they were) so perhaps Jesus, after his encounter in the wilderness, is also able to begin to make sense of and understand who he is. With Adam and Eve there is a sense of loss when, a little after this extract, God comes looking for them – he walks through the garden calling out “where are you?” not so much with anger as with longing. It seems to me that the failed tempting of Christ in the wilderness results in a sort of homecoming. In Adam, humanity runs away and hides from God; in Jesus humanity is welcomed back to God.

This commentary is all very fascinating of course, but we can’t stop there – we need to consider what it means – what we should learn from these stories.

I suppose, in seeing Adam and Christ as parallels, we learn not just that human beings are inherently faulty, but that they also have the potential to overcome faults. Adam is indeed in all of us, but so too can Christ be.

We can understand that we all have our moments of temptation, after all Christ himself could not avoid it, and we all have our moments of choice. Adam, Eve and Jesus all chose freely – and we choose freely too.

This notwithstanding, we can also be reassured that even if we take Adam’s route, our mistake is not irredeemable. Although Adam opens the way to sin, Christ signposts our journey back to God.

These two moments in the Bible seem to be highly significant pivots. Adam’s story starts us on a journey away from God; Christ’s re-orientates us towards God. And I suppose we journey all our lives in the tension between these two pivots.

Before the apple-eating activities in Eden, God and Adam and Eve kept company together – they freely spoke to and saw each other – they delighted in one another. The knowledge which Adam and Eve were so keen to gain and which they thought would make them like God, instead showed them how much they were not like God. I suppose it was the knowledge of how great the gap was between themselves and God which made them unable to look at him, made those terms of easy intimacy untenable. It made them seek the shadows away from the brilliance of his presence. Perhaps because humanity had realised how far it was from God, God in the person of Jesus needed to show how close he was to humanity. In the person of Jesus, we can, once again look at God, we can speak to him, we can include him in our everyday lives, we can live alongside him.

I specifically asked for the Genesis reading this morning instead of Paul’s epistle to the Romans, but that Romans reading (5:12-19) is worth perusal. In it Paul contrasts the effects of Adam’s sin and Jesus’ righteousness – so I shall conclude with Paul’s words:

18 Therefore just as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all. 19 For just as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.

Consequences

In Adam’s disobedience his eyes

Opened to myriad possibilities,

And must have flit around the fresh new garden

Bewildered at such complex baffling potential.

But a broader vision, resulted in focus lost

At the final, fatally echoing clang of the gate.

But when, in his obedience, the Christ

Closed his eyes in that crimson pain,

And later lay so still, eyes bandaged shut

In the deep chill darkness, the gate swung open

And light dawned again in the reciprocal,

Chiming of glorious, re-creation.

Intercessions

Sentence: As you know our weakness