The season of Lent began this past week on Ash Wednesday, February 6th. If you think it’s early this year, it is. Because of the timing of Easter set by the vernal equinox and the lunar cycle, Lent is about as early as it gets! Our Sunday worship continues to develop our year long theme of “Finding Our Way” with the Lenten theme, “Looking Both Ways”. We’ll be looking both ways by focusing on common themes in both the Old Testament and New Testament readings each week. We’ll be looking both ways as we reflect back on the meaning of these ancient scriptures in their time and reflect forward on their meaning for our lives today.

So we start by looking back to the second and third chapters of the very first book of the Bible, Genesis, which Rick Evans read for us this morning. Few texts in all of scripture have been the source of more disagreement and pain than these verses in Genesis 2 and 3 about “the Fall of Adam and Eve”. In the first century, the apostle Paul used this Scripture in his letter to the Romans to discuss the moral pathology of human beings. In the Middle Ages St. Augustine used this passage to assert that all people are originally sinful creatures cleansed only by the waters of baptism. This teaching led to centuries of unbaptized infants being heartlessly relegated to limbo or even hell in cases of premature death. During the time of the Protestant Reformation, church reformers like Martin Luther and John Calvin pointed to this scripture as the reason we inherit Adam’s guilt and live in a state of “total depravity” from the very moment of conception. In the last century these words have also been used to perpetuate women in second-class citizenship because after all, “They were the start of all our problems”. And even today, creationists cling to the story of Adam and Eve as the literal evidence of intelligent design.

Please allow me a brief aside on this last point. Thirty-four years ago I played the role of John Scopes in a high school production of Inherit the Wind. It’s a true story about John Scopes, a science teacher who was on trial in Dayton, Tennessee back in 1925 for teaching evolution in the classroom. Attorneys Henry Drummond and Matthew Harrison Brady faced off in what became a media circus. I remember being amazed back in high school that the issue still roused media circuses and am even more amazed that the issue continues to be newsworthy even today.

For a century, the creationism and evolution debate in classrooms, school board rooms and even courtrooms has centered on what the Bible says vs. what Science says. And what isn’t even the right question! The book of Genesis was never intended to be a science textbook; it was intended to be a narrative, in fact several narratives, of creatures living in relationship with each other and their creator. Genesis is intended to address the questions of who and why; not when and how. Religion and science can peacefully coexist, even mutually support and complement one another if we can simply look to the Bible to answer the questions of who does the creating and why are we here and leave the questions of when did creation occur and how did it all happen to the ongoing inquiry of science.

Regarding the long standing doctrines of sin emerging from chapters 2 and 3 of Genesis, Michael Nichols writes in his book, Finding Your Own Lake Wobegon, “I myself am a Presbyterian, and we do believe in original sin. I’ve always thought that if you are going to sin, you ought to be original about it.” He tells the story of driving home to see his mother, and passing on the highway a big church with a lighted board out front, on which they put slogans and sayings for the inspiration of passers by. That week the motto was, “If you’re done with sin, come on in.” As Nichols drew closer, he noticed that someone had added graffiti in lipstick, “But if you’re not quite through, call 272-0200.”

Funny thing is, there isn’t anything particularly original about sin. We all do it. And over the course of human history every conceivable type of sin has been committed many times over. And as for its origin? Well the overriding message of creation from the opening chapter of the book of Genesis is that God doesn’t create depravity; God’s creation is good, and that affirmation is repeated again and again and again! It wasn’t because of their genes, but because of their choices, that Adam and Eve messed up.

Rob Bell in his book Velvet Elvis makes an interesting observation. “Is the greatest truth about Adam and Eve and the fruit that it happened, or that it happens? This story, one of the first in the Bible, is true for us because it is our story. We have all taken the fruit. We have all crossed boundaries. We have all made decisions to do things our way and then looked back and said to ourselves, ‘What was I thinking?’ The fruit looked so great to Adam and Eve for those brief moments, but the consequences were with them for the rest of their lives. Their story is our story. We see ourselves in them.” The story of Adam and Eve and the serpent and the fruit tree is true regardless of whether it actually happened the way it reads in Genesis, because it still happens. It’s an accurate depiction of how life is and how our experiences resonate with this universal story.

Genesis describes an aspect of sin that seems to be a very uncomfortable and unwelcome concept in many circles these days: consequences. Pop Stars don’t want consequences, just another week in rehab. Pro athletes don’t want consequences, just limits on random drug testing. Mafia bosses don’t want consequences, just another hung jury. Underage drinkers don’t want consequences, just privacy for their photos posted on the web. We don’t like consequences, but Adam and Eve’s disobedience had consequences. When we sin, when we do wrong, the harm we do to ourselves and others results in consequences. This doesn’t mean that forgiveness isn’t possible. But forgiveness doesn’t erase consequences. When he was in elementary school, my brother fell out of the tree my parents told him not to climb. My parents forgave him, but he still had two broken wrists.

When we turn from Genesis to look the other way toward the Gospel of Matthew, we read about Jesus, the one whom the Apostle Paul calls the Second Adam. In this account from chapter 4, the wilderness soul searching of Jesus, the second Adam is tempted (like the First Adam) but in this case, is able to ward off the Tempter.

There’s an old story about a man from the city who was out driving one day, in the country. The signs on the road weren’t very good, and he got lost. So he stopped at a farmhouse to ask directions. “Can you tell me how far it is to the town of Mill Pond?” he asked. “Well,” said the old farmer, “the way you’re going’ it’s about 24,900 miles. But if you turn around, it’s about four.”

It’s an apt illustration of how far off course the temptation to sin can lead us unless we stop and turn around. Whether you read Matthew 4 as an external dialogue with the forces of evil or an internal struggle with the evil within, Jesus’ behavior in the face of temptation is helpful. Notice that with the first two temptations, Jesus responds with a reference to the Word; “It is written.” He appeals to reason and tradition to hold the Tempter and temptation at bay. But with the third temptation, Jesus loses his patience and commands the Tempter to leave in verse 10: “Away with you!” How similar to our lives. We reason, we argue, we rationalize, yet the temptation lingers. There comes a time when we’ve got to say, “Away with you!” And head in a new direction.
In the June 4, 1992 Upper Room meditation by Canadian Stanley Baldwin, he tells of trying to bury garbage in his backyard while a poor college student rather than pay for garbage collection. What no one ever told him, however, was that garbage service in that small Canadian town was free. He reflected, “Similarly, many people try, not very successfully, to dispose of the garbage in their personal lives: their sins, shortcomings and bad attitudes. The good news is that God provides ‘free garbage service’ to every resident of God’s kingdom.” There’s nothing so original about sin that it genetically entraps us; and nothing so original about our sins that we cannot forgive ourselves, because God has already forgiven us!