Spoiled Goodness

The scriptures referred to are Genesis 2:15-17; 3-17, Psalm 32, and Matthew 4:1-11.

Some people think that the concept of evil is itself evil. That is, they think that morality is something we made up to control people. They think that everything that humans do is natural. Yeah, but not everything natural is good. Jane Goodall was horrified when she discovered that the chimpanzees she had studied for decades would sometimes practice cannibalism. And archaeologists have dug up human bones that show signs that people have been butchered and eaten. Cannibalism does occur in nature. It's not good.

In fact one of the things that separates humans from other animals is our large frontal lobe. Our judgment and restraint reside in the part of the brain behind our forehead. As a neurosurgical nurse I have seen what happens when people have damage to the frontal lobe. They act like 2 year olds, albeit with human intelligence and strength. One family was at first worried that their son, who received a head injury in an accident, would die. When he didn't, they then worried that he would never wake from his coma. When he did, they were happy. But then they began to realize he was not the same person. He cursed profusely unlike before. He threw tantrums (and as someone well over 6 feet tall, these were frightening and possibly dangerous). And he did things in public that most people do in private. He had lost all his inhibitions. We also see this in frontotemporal dementia, where those lobes of the brain shrink and the person becomes inappropriate, impulsive, loses empathy for others and has language problems or aphasia.

Like any part of the body, the frontal lobe must be exercised and trained to get better at what it does. And so we teach our children rules. Don't hit your friends when you get mad. Don't take things that belong to others. Don't break things when you get frustrated. Basically, we teach children to refrain from harming themselves and others and to refrain from doing things that will harm their relationships with others. Because if they are violent, mean and untrustworthy, it will hurt them throughout their life.

There is a day when a kid learns that not everyone lives by these rules. They see others, and especially adults, break the rules about not doing harm. We call that moment the loss of innocence. They realize the world is not as safe as they thought. They realize they are vulnerable. They lose a bit of the trust they had in others to always do the right thing.

That's what we see at the end of today's reading from Genesis. But first we see a paradigm of how temptation works. And in our gospel passage we see how Jesus handled temptation.

We are told that humans are put on earth to tend it and care for it. We were to be the gardeners of the Garden of Eden. And God gives his one and only rule for the first humans to observe. “You may eat freely of every tree in the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat it you shall die.” It's like telling a kid they may play with anything in the toy room but do not mess with the electrical sockets. There is only one thing prohibited and it's for their own good.

By the way, the Hebrew word translated “evil” basically means “spoiled” or “ruined by being broken into pieces.” If God created everything good as it says in Genesis chapter 1, where does evil come from? It comes from spoiling or ruining God's gifts by misusing them to harm rather than to help. One of the first tools humans invented was the knife. It helped us hunt and prepare food; it also became the basic weapon to kill other humans. We always seem to take the gifts God gives us, like intelligence and knowledge and skills, and use them to spoil, ruin and break God's gifts, including other people.

So why would God not want the first humans to learn about good and evil? I think it is for the same reason we tell kids not to go off with strangers but do not tell them that the reason is that they could be kidnapped, sexually abused and killed. They are not ready for that knowledge. We want them to be careful around strangers, not traumatized by the mere presence of strangers. Later, when they are ready, they will learn, hopefully only by hearing stories, of how bad such things can get. In the meantime, the rule suffices.

It seems that babies are born with just two inbuilt fears: fear of falling and fear of snakes. And Genesis uses this second natural fear to show us how temptation works.

First the tempter suggests that God is unreasonable. He says, “Did God say, 'You shall not eat from any tree in the garden'?” God never said that but the implication is that God's laws are not always rational. I had an aunt who would not let us kids sit on any of the sofas and chairs in her living room, despite the fact that they were all covered in clear plastic! God is not like that. But the doubt of his trustworthiness has been planted.

And though the woman corrects the serpent, she does expand the commandment a bit. She says that they are not merely to refrain from eating it but from touching it. This might seem like a sensible precaution. If you don't touch it, you can't eat it. But people sometimes expand God's commandments to a point where they can hinder doing good things, such as when the Pharisees expanded the rule against working on the Sabbath to include not healing suffering people on it. Jesus points out that it is OK to heal and help people (and animals) on the Sabbath. (Luke 13:10-17) And indeed a lot of young people leave churches because they were taught that a bunch of unnecessary rules were given by God and not actually by men. Joshua Harris admits that his popular evangelical book, I Kissed Dating Goodbye, which substituted marriage-minded courtship for dating and was seminal in the development of the so-called “purity culture,” has done more harm to young people than good and he has requested it no longer be printed.

Next the tempter flatly contradicts God. “You will not die...” How often do we tell ourselves that breaking a moral rule is not that serious? “Just this once,” we tell ourselves. But some decisions have life-altering consequences that we didn't foresee. We teach our kids not to play with fire. One girl I grew up with played with matches, caught fire, and while she did not die, she was disfigured for life. As someone once said, before you tear down a fence, find out why it was put up in the first place.

The tempter continues, “...for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened...” Secret or forbidden knowledge is tempting. Knowing what others don't makes you feel superior. That's the lure of many occult practices and almost every cult that ever drew unsuspecting people in. They offer false knowledge containing just enough truth to get past some people's B.S. detector.

Even when the unknown knowledge is true, it can be a two-edged sword. When we unlocked the secret of nuclear power, what was the first thing humans did with that knowledge? We created the most destructive bomb in history, one capable of destroying an entire city and vaporizing people, leaving only their shadows burnt into the remaining stones. And since then we went on to create ever more devastating nuclear weapons. As for using that power to help people, that has not been nearly as successful.

And now the tempter delivers the coup de grace: “...and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” That's the real temptation. We humans can do a lot but there are things outside our control. We wish we had the power to control everything and everyone. We daydream about being superheroes who can fly, have super strength and be invulnerable. We wish to be gods. And there are things beyond our understanding (and some always will be, for our brains are finite). Yet we know that knowledge is power. And we want that knowledge so we can control the powers of the universe. It would be wonderful if we used that knowledge and power only to do good for everyone but you just know someone will figure out a way to use those things for their own advantage and to harm and dominate others. In some labs we create cures and in others biological weapons.

The woman is hooked. She “saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise...” It tasted good, it looked good and it made you smarter. As someone who used to be a copywriter, I can tell you that modern advertising still emphasizes those 3 characteristics. We even market junk food so it will have the right balance of sweetness, saltiness, attractive appearance and “8 essential vitamins” so you can scarf down your Lucky Charms and think you had a healthy meal. And notice how the word “good” is being used in a different way here. The text parallels the words “good,” “delight” and “desired.” This is “good” in the sense of “making you feel good.” Absent is the sense of actually “being good for you.”

And lest you want to blame this all on the woman, notice that she doesn't have to hunt the man down to give him the fruit. No, “she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate.” (Emphasis mine) He was standing right there, listening to all this and not trying to intervene or correct what was being said. Evil isn't always active; evil can be complicity, letting others do the wrong thing and not saying or doing anything. How did the fascists take over Italy and Germany prior to World War 2? How did the Nazis deport and kill the Jews in the countries they conquered? Because most people kept quiet and went about their own business, ignoring the evil others perpetrated.

The first humans' eyes are opened, yet they don't see themselves as more powerful but as vulnerable. They now know how every good gift of God can be used to harm them. They know how to harm each other. They are like children who have seen what matches can do. They wish for armor but all they can do is sew leaves together to cover their naked and vulnerable bodies. The bright world they were given is now covered in sinister shadows. It is no longer paradise for them. The pure goodness in them has died.

Jesus' temptations are different. He has the power of God and so in this case the temptation is to misuse it. He could use his divine powers to benefit himself by making stones into bread. But he counters his temptations with his knowledge of scripture. Quoting Deuteronomy, he asserts that without the spiritual nourishment which comes from God's word, life is meaningless. If all we are here for is to eat, sleep and make sure we don't die, our lives are emptier than our stomachs.

Then he is tempted to test just how much God will protect him, even if he does something as stupid as throwing himself from the top of the temple. The tempter even misuses scripture to that purpose, something we do when we want to justify reckless behavior. But God did not send Jesus to be invulnerable. On the contrary, as the book of Hebrews reminds us, “For we do not have a high priest incapable of sympathizing with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in every way just as we are, yet without sin.” (Hebrews 4:15) Jesus doesn't avoid sin by being impervious to it but by choosing to do what is right no matter how tempting the alternative is. And he is not going to test God by doing something rash and expecting God to protect him from the consequences.

Finally the tempter offers him all earthly power. He could be emperor of the world. All he has to do is bend the knee to the one Jesus later calls “the ruler of this world.” (John 14:30; 16:11) Jesus just has to switch allegiance from God and his goodness to his adversary, and the world is his. He will not have to try to convince others to choose to be part of the kingdom of God. He will not have to go to the cross. This is the easy way that people gain power. They suck up to those who will give them power in return for their loyalty. But what else are they giving? The question, as Jesus puts it, is “For what does it benefit a person to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?” (Mark 8:36) Jesus dismisses the tempter, saying that God is the only one we are to worship and serve. Jesus will follow God's will and serve him, even when it leads to the cross.

We are all tempted to do what is easy or desirable, even if it spoils and ruins what God has created for us and in us. And we will at some point succumb. Are we lost? No, not if we do as it says in our psalm and confess to God what we have done wrong. We must acknowledge that we are not God, we are not perfect, and we have done harm or let it be done. We cannot always undo what we have done to others or the world, but we can let God undo the damage we have done to ourselves. And then, as his Holy Spirit repairs us, we can go about as the body of Christ repairing the world we have spoiled and ruined. And we can trust in his goodness, his wisdom and his promise that he will make us and all things new. (Revelation 21:1-5)