Lent 1 A + Being human + 2.26.23

 

M. Campbell-Langdell

All Santos, Oxnard

(Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7; Psalm 32; Romans 5:12-19; Matthew 4:1-11)

 

Today’s scriptures from Genesis and Matthew are stories imprinted on our minds, stories that we know almost by memory, almost as if we didn’t need to crack open the Bible, or our reading sheet. We know the story of Adam and Eve, and of Jesus in the desert, a good reminder that today is the first Sunday of Lent, and that yes, we were meaning to follow this Lenten discipline, or that.

We think we know them, but often times, if you are like me, you think often of all the cultural baggage we have mounted up around them. Is sin and death Eve’s fault? How about Adam? Is this the original male versus female? And what about those who fall between somewhere? And good for Jesus, encountering temptation and winning at it, but I know I won’t do so well. I’m only human, after all.

Only human. That is at the root of this tree of stories, isn’t it? What are we, as humans, and what is God to us?

I like to think of Adam and Eve not as male and female archetypes in this story, but as human beings trying to relate to God. Trying to understand who they are in God’s creation. Enjoying God’s presence, and also making mistakes, because this is what we humans do. Later, dealing with bodies that are finite, breakable. Souls that are not, ultimately, breakable.

This is the stuff of our earthly existence. Being human, of the ground, and the dirt, and the earth. Being God’s creation, fearfully and wonderfully made.
Late theologian Michael Himes pointed out that one sin here in Eve’s and Adam’s decision-making process is the temptation to think that we have to somehow grasp God-like-ness from God.[1] The serpent’s lie lies in letting Eve believe that she is actually not already connected to God. Do not Adam and she walk with God? How is it possible that they have not already begun to understand, perhaps already did at a molecular level, what is good and what is evil, because they are God’s creation and they walk side by side with God? Right around this passage in Genesis, we hear about how God approached Adam and Eve for a stroll in the cool of the evening. What a lovely image. They tended to stroll together. In fact, it seems that they must be very connected to God. The lie is that they need to grasp more. The sad truth is that we often disconnect ourselves from God in trying to grasp what is freely given. And we often grasp too hard or high.

When you think about it, the tempter comes to Jesus and asks him to do just that. To follow the human impulse to grasp too hard or too high. I know you’re human, he says, but you are also divine. So, turn stones into bread, take control of the nations of the world- they can’t run themselves, anyway. While you’re at it, test God! God will save you if you do something foolhardy. But Jesus says- that’s not how God works, and that’s not how I work, either. Sorry. I have to be fully human. I have to live with hunger, fear, powerlessness as humans do. I can’t just break the rules because I also happen to be divine. Marvelously, this response is what reminds me that Jesus truly was the Son of God, that he didn’t force anything, but experienced the world as we do. He learned to live as a human and embrace the path that God had laid before him.

It is truly hard to be human, and to accept that fact, and to love God as we are.

This is something Jesus learned well. God came to earth, took on flesh to be with us human beings. Jesus wandered out into the desert and had a talk with the enemy, the adversary. An internal adversary, or external? We are not sure. But we know what the serpent and the adversary have in common is the ability to make humans believe a lie, if we let them. Jesus was able to hear the lies for what they were. He was tempted in all these ways, but largely these temptations had to do with acting like God and not like a human being.[2] And Jesus said no, that is not my path. My path is walked alongside humans. I will not grasp beyond or skip steps for my own glory. My path is to walk with humans. To live as a human being, in the limits of the flesh. In the goodness of God’s creation, in me.

God is not debased in uniting with God’s creation, that is, in part, us. And if we let it, God’s truth here will free us. We can learn to love who we are as humans and follow Jesus’ example. One of my Lenten practices is to try to simplify, not to rush but to pace myself and try to be present, even in this busy season. Jesus models a way for me here, by not grasping or attempting to wrest God-liness from God. We can love and serve as if we are on our knees, in the dirt. In our human condition. We can connect with the goodness in God’s creation and in ourselves. It isn’t always easy. Lord knows Jesus suffered because he took that path, but he was genuinely here, genuinely with us, truly God and human.
And I wonder, if we can imagine ourselves back into that time of the evening breeze, what would it be like to walk with God, in our humanity, without shame or grasping for something else, loving what is, how God created us, and living into the full goodness of it all… what would that be like?

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[1] Himes, Michael J. (1991) "Our Amazing Dignity: An Address to the National Federation of Catholic Physicians' Guilds," The Linacre Quarterly: Vol. 58: No. 3, Article 6. Available at: http://epublications.marquette.edu/lnq/vol58/iss3/6.

[2] Ibid.