March 12, 2011
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The devil made me do it!
Flip Wilson, the comic, in his character of Geraldine, made the phrase, “The devil made me do it” a part of popular culture in the ‘70s. However, Flip Wilson cannot be credited with making it popular to find someone else to blame for our misdeeds or our lack of doing what we should. Finding someone to blame is as old as the Genesis story of the first humans, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and a serpent. There are some details that need to be filled in for us to understand this story and what it might mean for us today. The first is to know that the first human creature was not called man by God, the creature was called Adam, meaning of or from the earth, earth creature if you will. The suggestion is that God spoke all of creation into being except humans. Humans were formed by God from the dirt and that form will return to the dirt, ashes to ashes and dirt to dirt. What God breathed into the earth creature is life, or some would say soul. God told the earth creature, Adam, do not eat of the Tree-of-the-Knowledge-of-Good-and-Evil or you will surely die. It is possible to read this as you will lose your soul. Then God creates for the earth creature, a partner, another earth creature but these earth creatures will be gendered. God creates them, male and female. The original earth creature, Adam, calls the partner, Eve, and names her woman. Clearly, this is written by men who have decided they were first and that women came from them. Others would say the original was a prototype and the second was the improved final product, it all depends upon perspective. What is clear Eve was not present for the conversation regarding the Tree-of-the-Knowledge-of-Good-and-Evil.
Along comes the serpent, believed to be evil, to convince Eve to eat from the Tree-of-the-Knowledge-of-Good-and-Evil. Some, mostly men, have used this to say that woman are the weaker vessel and easily swayed by evil temptation. Others might point out the woman may have been vulnerable to the serpent’s argument because the man failed to communicate to her what God had said and the importance of the message. In any case, the woman eats from the Tree-of-the-Knowledge-of-Good-and-Evil and convinces Adam to do so also. The serpent said God had lied to the humans because God did not want the humans to be as powerful as God. Many seem to have believed the serpent over God’s explanation. What does that say about our willingness to be persuaded by questionable sources? God said the people would surely die. Adam and Eve did not die. So, did God lie? Or do we go back to the understanding that God was talking about the death of the soul of humans. What died was the human naiveté. The humans began to judge the rightness and wrongness of the way things were. They perceived they were naked and they were ashamed, and we have the foundation of the blame and shame way of relating to each other and ourselves. God forbid them to eat from the Tree-of-the-Knowledge-of-Good-and-Evil because God knew, once humans gained a knowledge of good and evil, we would use it to shame ourselves and blame others. No longer would we live in complete acceptance of the world as God created it or as we had been created. No longer would humans rely on God to put the world in order and live in it as God had planned it. Humans would toil the ground to produce their food and clothing because they would no longer trust in God’s ability to provide and they would not trust each other so they would always desire to have more and to keep others from having enough. Living would revolve around making and enforcing rules based on what humans believe to be right or wrong. I believe even the consequence of pain in child birth may come from the human sense of the rightness of doing what happens to create life and the fear women have learned about the process of bringing new life into being. I cannot support that with science but I do believe God intended us to create new life and to live in intimacy with each other without all the angst and fear we have loaded onto our intimate lives.
What happened in the Garden of Eden is contrasted with what happened in the desert when the devil returns to test Jesus. The devil tempts Jesus with getting rid of his hunger, and to prove God’s protection, and to have great power. These arguments aren’t much different from the ones that the serpent used with the first humans so I would think we can assume these are the same arguments we will hear when evil tempts us to do something we know to be outside of God’s will. Jesus doesn’t give into the temptation to fill his hunger, prove God’s protection, or to have great power. Jesus replies this is not how God intends to meet his hunger, protect him, or give him great power. All of the things the devil has offered to Jesus will come to him, but not through is demanding them in his way and at his time. Each one of us will be tempted to satisfy our hunger, obtain protection, and have power. The question is will we wait on God to provide or will we grab for it in our own way and then say, “The devil made me do it.” Amen.
