The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”  ... Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’” “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. (Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7)

 

 

     Have you ever found yourself facing a difficult situation and the first thing that pops into your head is “how did I get myself into this?” It happens all the time doesn't it. You think everything's OK; you think you're doing all the right things. Then – all of a sudden things aren't working out so well, and you have a giant mess of some sort to try to get out of! It's just a part of being human I suppose. In spite of our best efforts, sometimes things just don't go as well as we had hoped and planned. Even with the best of intentions, things can just end up in a mess. It's human nature. We have the amazing capacity to create messes where no mess existed before! A little bit of temptation to take a step off the right path and – bang! There's trouble galore, and we're in a mess, and desperate for a way to get out of it!

 

     In a way, “the mess” is what Lent is all about. How did we get from where we were to where we are. Perhaps more importantly, how do we get from where we are to where we want to be? One of the themes of the Season of Lent is often temptation. A traditional Gospel reading for the first Sunday of Lent is the story of Jesus – after His baptism - being driven into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan; tempted to demonstrate a lack of faith in God and in God's word. Many people invite temptation during Lent. The whole concept of “giving something up” for Lent is really in a way about inviting temptation into our lives. We give up something that's meaningful to us, but because it's meaningful it's usually present, and it tempts us to give up on the commitment we've made. Temptation has its place I suppose. Actually, a long time ago, Augustine argued that temptations are necessary for spiritual progress. 

 

     I personally hope that Augustine was right, and that temptations are necessary, because from time to time they come to every one of us. What is a temptation? In simple terms, it's when we're presented with something that we want but we know we shouldn't have; or it's when we're given the opportunity to do something that we know we shouldn't do. That's pretty common – and probably all of us can think of times in our lives when we've done the thing we shouldn't have done. But a temptation, in a way, is more than that. A temptation is a trick; it's a deception or  a lie. Temptations hide the truth from us and instead they start to make us think that a lie is the truth. A temptation often seems to offer us something good or pleasant but in usually ends up enticing us into acting selfishly, seeking to satisfy our own desires and not being concerned with the consequences of our actions – either to ourselves or to others. “You wanna buy this? Put it on the credit card. You don't even have to pay right now!” But eventually the bill comes due; eventually the consequences of our actions hit home. Temptations lure us into doing or saying or thinking something that does not reflect who we really are as sons and daughters of God. A temptation tries to convince us with laughter and smiles but it's suddenly not there when it's time for us to help us pick up the pieces and deal with the guilt afterwards. A temptation lures us away from us the road that leads us to peace and joy and happiness and eternity and instead it makes us think there's a shortcut - a quick and easy way to find what is really good and worthwhile in life. So a temptation is sneaky. It  offers us what looks like a quick-fix, but in reality the quick fix can become a quick disaster. “I'm just gonna do it once. No one will ever know.” But if I can put it this way, our sins have a way of catching up with us, don't they. And deep down we know that. We know that somewhere along the way we're going to get caught, but we march boldly forward. So a temptation is also irrational and it has no sense. A temptation hopes that we'll stop using our brains because if we do use our brains when temptation comes we will notice pretty easily how stupid following the temptation would be. Is there anything more deceptive and sneaky and two-faced than temptations? Probably not. 

 

     Temptation forces us to make a choice. Is it going to be the way of God for us – or is it going to be our way?That's always the temptation. That's always the question. From the beginning of human existence, that's always been the question. Do we live for God or do we live for ourselves? Do we live for others or do we live for ourselves? Do we live with a spirit of generosity or do we live with a spirit of selfishness? That's always been the question. Those who authored the Bible knew that had always been the question. That's why we have the temptation story of Genesis. Some call it the story of the fall; but I think of it more as a story about the dangers of succumbing to temptation. Same thing, perhaps, but maybe I look at it a bit more positively than most people.

 

     The whole creation story of Genesis is essentially a series of life lessons – teaching us about the power and nature of God, and warning us about the dangers involved in giving in to temptation (and this, encouraging us to stay close to God.) Next to the story of the temptation of Jesus in the Gospels perhaps, the temptation of Eve in Genesis 3 is probably the most familiar temptation story in the entire Bible. We often think of the story as being about either sin or death. There's some truth to both of those ideas. The refusal to follow God and the choice to give in to temptation when the temptation contradicts God is sin, and it is true that God said that the consequences for the sin would be death. But, really, when you pull the layers away and get to the heart of the story – it's about shame.

 

     Eve starts out the story with no shame. In fact, she has so little shame that she innocently takes it upon herself to defend God against the serpent's lies. “Did God tell you that you couldn't eat from any tree in the garden?” the serpent asked. “Oh no. God didn't say that – it's only the one tree we can't eat from.” She boldly stands up for God and defends God against the one who was distorting God's word. But innocence can be a problem too – because innocents can be deceived and tricked and sucked in. Which is what the serpent did to Eve. And the end result was that by the end of the story, Eve had gone from being an innocent defender of God to hiding herself along with Adam from God in shame, making clothes out of fig leaves – to “cover up” as it were. And isn't that what temptation so often leads to? We get tempted, we give in, we're ashamed and then we have to construct an entire alternative reality to try to get out of it – we try to cover it up. Remember Bill Clinton? “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinski.” Just as Eve and Adam tried to hide and cover up.

 

     That's the end result of succumbing to temptation. I guess we all do it from time to time. We all probably have moments of saying, “what in the world did I do and why and how do I avoid the consequences of it?” That's shame, and shame leads to fear, and fear leads to covering up, and nothing much good comes from it. But if we had read on in the story we would have discovered that there is good news. The good news isn't that we avoid the consequences of our actions. There are consequences for giving in to temptation. But the good news is that in the midst of it all God is always there, and God already knows. It's fascinating that as the story continues on, God doesn't take away the consequences, but God does offer help. God even helps Adam and Eve “cover up” in a way by making clothes for them at the end of Chapter 3. The point of that is that God accepts us as we are – even if we're shameful and afraid – and God somehow gets us back on the right path.

 

     Do you have temptations in your life? Things you want but you know you shouldn't have? Things you want to do but you know you shouldn't do? Or maybe you've given in to the temptations and done the thing you shouldn't do. The point is that God's there to help in the midst of it, setting us all back on the path. To me, that's pretty good news, indeed!