A BITE FROM THE APPLE: THE STORY OF SIN
The Rev. Mark Sherwindt, Pastor
Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church
Lent 1: February 12-13, 2005
Here we see an apple - a beautifully colored and shapely apple at that - the age-old symbol of the turning point in our relationship with God, when, for one small bite, Adam and Eve - and all of us with them - were thrust from the security of the Garden of Eden into the wilderness where the struggle for "survival of the fittest" forms the underlying principle of our lives. Can you imagine that? One small bite ... [take a bite] ... umm, sinfully delicious! But still, it does seem somewhat simplistic to suppose that one little bite of this forbidden fruit could cause the whole course of human life to change, and the entire character of our relationship with God to experience an abysmal fall.
Perhaps this more contemporary apple [hold up a mouse-pad with the insignia for Apple Computer] illustrates better what is at stake in this story of Adam and Eve's fall from the grace in the Garden of Eden. It seems to me that this computer-age apple reveals a good deal more about the simple truth of this ancient story about human sin. The computer is a symbol of control in this increasingly sophisticated world of ours; and it is control that is the sin about which this story speaks. Adam and Eve thirsted for more than the sweet taste of this delicious fruit. They desired control - control over their decisions, control over their lives, control over their world; and their desire for control, as the Scriptural Lesson in Genesis makes clear, is ultimately related to the power of knowledge.
Today, we harness the power of knowledge by managing and directing information through highly advanced computers. We use computers to exercise control over our personal lives, in the workplace, throughout the world. We have built up technological muscles that are limited only by the amount of information we are able to store and harness. With the brain of technology and the brains of computers, we have designed some of the world's smartest and most destructive weaponry, controlled by highly sophisticated guidance systems. And yet, for all our knowledge, with all this power, exercising incredible control, are we any more secure? North Korea is just one more instance, with Iran on the way, where we are confronted with our fear that this new-found knowledge has provided more power than we are able to control.
For all our knowledge, the world seems only to be spinning more out-of-control. This is the curse of the Fall, that in seeking to be in control, without have cultivated the inner character of God's love, we create a world that is more and more out-of-control. For the key to control in the Bible is not power but love; and without being well-practiced in the skills of God's love, our control leads invariably to coercion, manipulation, and dominance, which inspires resistance, resentment, and even hostility. But we need not focus on the nations of the world to make this point. For this thirst for control invades just about all of the relationships in our lives - relationships among friends, within families, between lovers. How can I control thee? Let me count the ways! Let's see, there's active aggression and passive aggression. There's direct dominance and indirect manipulation. I can coax or coerce, bargain or threaten, butter you up or dress you down. Infinite are the variations on this age-old theme; but invariably, as Paul writes in the Second Lesson, in Adam we are all one in finding it difficult to control this impulse, an impulse that will not rest until we have taken control even of God.
This is the subtlety of the serpent's lure. For Adam and Eve did more than take control of their decisions. They did more than take control of God's Garden. They took control of God's Word, making themselves judge of what God means, of what God desires and requires. In so doing, they rejected the limits that God had set, and, in effect, became God's gods. They chose to decide for themselves what's important to God and what God should be satisfied with. They gave up the status God gave them, as creatures made "in the image of God" (Genesis 1:26), and preferred to become "like God" (Genesis 3:5), like God, that is, in every respect but one, lacking God's infinite capacity for true love. It is no wonder, then, that when they discovered they were naked, exposed before fellow creatures seeking to be "like God" (in terms of taking control, but lacking God's wisdom and love), it is no wonder that they would seek to cover themselves, to close the window of vulnerability, which their nakedness represented and exposed.
In his classic entitled Creation and Fall, Dietrich Bonhoeffer tells us that the Biblical terms for this wrong choice is that we give up the gift of being made in God's image, imago Dei, in order to follow the lure that we might become like God, sicut deus. These two phrases, in God's image (imago Dei) and like God (sicut deus), sound so very close; yet they are worlds apart, worlds that are separated by the Fall, our sin. We give up the status God gave us as creatures (imago Dei) so that we might become like the creator (sicut deus). St. Paul uses the contrast of these classic images in talking about Christ in Philippians 2:5-11. "Let this same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, he did not think that being like God was a status to be sought, but chose instead to humble himself, taking the form of a servant", which is what it means to be made in God's image. Jesus did not choose the role of dominant lord; rather than seeking to control others like God (sicut deus), he chose instead to be controlled by the inner principle of God love (imago Dei).
When it comes to moving passed the Fall to living life as God originally intended, Jesus does more than point the way. He is the way, not merely by example, but by becoming - as Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes in another of his books, this one not quite a classic but just as insightful, Christ the Center - by becoming what Bonhoeffer calls the man in the middle, a middleman, the Redeemer we classically know as our Mediator. Bonhoeffer suggests that we understand Jesus best when we make the connection that what he does between us and God - namely, mediating our access to God, and thereby restoring our right relationship with God - he also does for our relationships with one another. Just as we have learned in faith that we do not have direct access to God except through Jesus Christ, so we must also learn that we cannot have direct access to and direct control over who we love, whether we're talking about our son or daughter, husband or wife, dear friend or significant other.
This is often the source of so much trouble in our relationships with others, namely, our desire to exert direct control over the feelings or the actions of those whom we love. But we've got to acknowledge the proper sense of limits that God lays down with creation. Sure, we are concerned about those whom we love. We'd like them to live good lives. It is tempting to tell those whom we love what they need to do in order to enjoy life more. But Bonhoeffer suggests that in this concern of ours, Christians should find themselves talking more often to God about our neighbors than to our neighbors about God. Bonhoeffer wasn't trying to discourage evangelism; rather, he was encouraging us to acknowledge the limits to the control we would like to exert over those whom we care about. Our impulse to control leads us to storm the middle ground between me and thee, and to exert control directly over a neighbor, a friend, our children, or our spouse. But how much better it would be, for us and those whom we love, if we recognized that Jesus is there in the middle, between us, making the space between us holy ground.
With a little imagination we can begin to understand the mystery of why it is that leaving it to prayer and to God is often the most effective means we have for expressing our concerns about those whom we love. God has more direct access to the hearts of those whom we love than we ourselves. I know that my mother found that to be true about her teenage son learning to spread his wings in ways that she feared could be disastrous. I guess she discovered that God's ears were always more open than mine; and what is more, she discovered that God often works with remarkable effectiveness, and is able to accomplish far more than we could ask or imagine! Well, its time to cut short this brief detour down memory lane, and return to our Lessons for the First Sunday in Lent. In Adam - and in Eve, for that matter - we are all one in storming the middle ground in order to exercise control directly over others; but in Christ we are invited to learn how to respect the middle ground as holy ground.
This is what the church was created for, and helps us do. The church is that place where we are invited to learn about God's love, where we are invited to learn to live this love, where we are called to cultivate the virtues of a Christ-like character, which will help us rightly discipline our impulse to control. This is not to say that life in the church has attained this higher possibility, and practices God's love perfectly. God only knows the forms of manipulation and control that characterize our life together, even here at Zion. Yet through constant reminders, like daily discipline, weekly confession, and sustained determination, it is our hope that God's will might some day become the reality we live in life, both in the church and outside the church, in the world we are trying to infect with God's love.
To sum it up, then, this Genesis text is not so much about the origin of sin as it is about the character of sin, which is the tendency to storm the middle ground to exercise direct control over others. However, since we have neither Christ's character nor God's heart, our exercise of control does not have the results we seek - namely, greater peace, more stability and true well-being - but seems instead to inspire resistance and resentment. Christ shows us the better way, a way we can see in the bread and the wine of communion, in his commitment to serve and his willingness to suffer. Christ is the better way. He is the man in the middle, mediating the way between us and God, standing between me and thee, creating the space for the integrity of our neighbor to flourish, making room for true love to grow, the love God so graciously gives ... and calls us to live ... in Jesus' Name.