O Lord, we pray, speak in this place, in the calming of our minds and in the longing of our hearts, by the words of my lips and in the thoughts that we form. Speak, O Lord, for your servants listen. Amen.
The reading from Romans today helps us to unite and make sense of the readings from the Book of Genesis and the Gospel According To Matthew.
In the first reading Paul speaks to us of how in Adam all die - and how in Christ all are given life. Of how by the sin of one death entered the world - and how by the righteousness of one death has been made no more.
He writes:
The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification.
That my friend's is part of what this church believes - part of what the whole church since the day of resurrection believes.
We understand death to have entered the world as the penalty for Adam and Eve's disobedience - for their turning away from God and doing that one single thing they had been told not to do, for on the day that they did they would surely die.
The story of Adam and Eve is much is discussed and disputed not just for it's historical truth - that is a dead horse it seem to me - but for it's theological truth.
Some people think Adam and Eve have gotten a bad rap. They ask us to take a hard look at their situation at the moment the serpent spoke to them.
Had they encountered deceit before?
Did they have any idea what a lie was?
Would they have had reason to doubt anyone?
How could they have known what "to die" meant?
These are good questions - questions that have allowed some people to conclude that Adam and Eve were "set up" by God - with no way to defend themselves - that God knew they would sin and created the conditions for them to sin in regardless.
In short they blame God for what happened.
This strikes me as an all too familiar modern theme - the theme of abandoning responsibility and of blaming others for the faults that lie within us.
You know how it goes:
Spill hot coffee on your lap and burn yourself -and blame MacDonald's for making it too hot and collect a cool two million dollars.
Kill someone when you are drinking - blame the alcohol for it - and get a tap on the wrist.
Live in a dysfunctional way, hurt those around you, or drive them to distraction with your neediness and your fragile self esteem - and blame your behaviour on how your parents raised you.
Hit your brother or kick or sister in the playground - and blame them for provoking you.
It is a familiar theme - and one as old as Adam and Eve who, upon being confronted by God after they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, promptly blamed God, one another, and then serpent for their act.
Adam's name, I hope you remember, means "human kind" and the name of Eve quite simply means "Mother of all living"
Adam and Eve are you and I.
And whether we intend to or not we all play their game - we take and eat the forbidden fruit. And like them, most of us, if we don't just outright deny doing the deed, - blame someone else for it.
At least at first, before we finally embrace the truth, before we finally say "mia culpa" and mean it.
Set up or not, the simple fact is that in the story of Adam and Eve there was one simple command given them - the command to not eat the fruit of a particular tree in the Garden; and knowing that - as Eve so obviously knew that when she responded to the Serpent's invitation - they went ahead anyway.
That invitation, you will remember, was "to become like God - knowing good and evil"
And so Adam and Eve, who were already made in the image of God and therefore like God turned away from the one who made them and sought to be like God in some other way, in the way that their inclinations and the inducements of the serpent suggested to them.
They sought to take a short cut to the very state of existence that God had already planned for them; to do it their way instead of God's way.
Think of the many children - never mind children - think of the many adults who have insisted taking short cuts to their destinations - short cuts that have been forbidden to them - or that they have been warned about, only to find out that there were very good reasons for the rule, very sound reasons for the advice.
No matter who you blame my friends, the simple fact is that although the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was good to the eye and desirable to make one wise it was - and it still is - very bad for the tummy.
Within the Gospel Reading we see another child of God, another person made in God's image, deal with the same tempter and the same temptation that tempted Adam and Eve.
One way of approaching the story of Jesus' being tempted in the wilderness is to see it as a personal struggle for Jesus, another is to see it as a story about a new Adam and a new beginning for the world.
After fasting 40 days, it must have been very 'tempting' for Jesus to turn anything into bread.
And already knowing where his journey was going to take him, it must have been tempting to take the short cut to dominion and power and glory - how much better to gain the whole world with one simple act of homage - than to gain it on journey that would involve dying on a cross.
And as to having proof that God really is with you if you are going to insist on going the long way round - surely there is nothing better than a little demonstration of divine love and protection - it will really pump you and help show the people that you are someone really special.
But Jesus took no short cuts to glory either in the wilderness or later.
He dealt with the world as it is - as it has become - because of the power of sin and death and, with no special advantages other that which his faith gave him (and which our faith gives us) he walked the path of obedience to God in the midst of a very difficult world.
He avoided eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil even though that fruit is very tempting indeed.
Jesus walked the path of his destiny as one made in the image of God - like you and I - and he suffered and he died - as we suffer and die - to undo what Adam and Eve did. - to undo what we do.
No short cuts.
He took the long way, around because, in the end, that is the only way to take if one hopes to arrive.
And Jesus arrived. And because he did - he is able to help us arrive.
As in Adam death came into the world for all so in Christ life comes to all who receive him.
I'm sure it's been said before, but whenever we're dealing with sin and temptation it seems useful to recollect that rarely is a person tempted to choose what seems an outright evil, rather we're tempted to a good. A partial good, a short-term good, but still a good. That is why temptation is hard to resist. If it were always a clear choice between good and evil, it would be easy.
That is why the law is given to us - from the first law in Eden about the tree in the middle of the garden to the law given to Moses.
It is given to help us know what is wrong and what is right and to use it and the word of God as a whole - in our struggle to resist temptation; much as Jesus used the word of God as found in the scriptures to help him turn away from each temptation the tempter offered to him after his baptism in the River Jordan.
He used the word of God - the commands of God - like they were sign posts on the roadway - showing which route is safe and which is not, which is good and which is bad.
And when the devil attempted to twist those sign posts around on him the Spirit of Truth that was poured out on Jesus kept him on course.
Jesus arrived - and he helps us to arrive.
His death as one whose way was blameless opens the way to life for us, it cancels the debt that we owe but which cannot pay ourselves.
When all is said and done however, our faith is about what Jesus has set us free for, not just what Jesus has set us free from.
It is not so much about what not to do - but about what to do. It is positive - not negative.
So should be our time in Lent, our time before the joy of Easter.
We should indeed avoid certain things - we should resist the tempter - we should, as the Season of Lent has traditionally suggested, give up certain things.
But we should go on to express ourselves positively - as did Jesus as he moved from the River of his Baptism and the wilderness of his temptations towards the cross and ultimately to his resurrection.
As the most ancient creed of the church - the Kerygma - expresses it - "beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached - he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him."
God is with us as well. We are anointed with the Holy Spirit. And though we may succumb to temptation, we are empowered - thanks to the one who did not succumb - to do all he did.
Simon says - clap your hands. Simon says - flap your elbows. God says - love your neighbours as yourselves. Jesus says - love one another as I have loved you.
Listen to the word of God - do what Simon says - Do good and heal those under the power of the devil. Get so busy doing the does of our faith that you don't have time to do the do nots and before you know it you will have arrived at the destination for which we all long for.
Going the long way round is not always easy - but it always gets us there while the shortcuts all end up in muck and mire.
Brothers and sisters should simply help one another if they can and not look for advantages or repayments for it. The church is about caring for all people. Pass on the kindness and love shown by Jesus to someone else sometime.
My friends Christ Jesus is here to help us in the battle against sin and temptation.
And when (notice I don't say if, but when) - and when we succumb to sin and temptation, be it in obvious ways or in ways that are only interior (buried deep in our hearts) God is here to shower his forgiveness upon us, his forgiveness and his grace for the meeting of a new day, the grace to get up and to move on doing what is right and avoiding what is wrong.
We go the long way round - because that is the road travelled by Jesus and because Jesus is still on that road to help us walk it and to help us arrive at the destination he has already reached.
Praise be to God - for being with us and in us and for making us able be with him and in him. Amen
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