First Sunday in Lent, Year A, March 9, 2014

Sin.

It is just a three-letter word, but has a lot of baggage. First of all, many people would not agree on what is sinful and what is not. And even if we do agree, what do we do about it. Should sin be met with punishment or forgiveness? Who decides?

We are uncomfortable about talking about sin. But it has been part of the human condition since the beginning of time.

The Bible attempts to explain sin through the story of Adam and Eve. Sin is linked to temptation. Temptation involves defying God’s command to taste forbidden fruit.

Yet after all these years since creation—do we really understand all the dimensions of sin. How can we put sin in perspective? How do we understand sin? A dictionary defines sin as “to commit an offense or fault.”

Sin is much more than an individual problem. It concerns families, households, communities and nations. As well as repenting for our own sins during this period of Lent, we need to repent collectively of the sin that is committed in our name.

So when we think of sin we have to think of societal sins such as racism, poverty, slavery, war, and economic exploitation.

In today’s reading from Genesis we hear the story of Adam and Eve, tempted by the serpent in the garden to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge.

This story is an attempt by the Hebrew people more than 3,000 years ago to explain the origin of sin, the origin of temptation. It is the story of our human fall from innocence, from paradise. It explains the reality of our free will. Eve chose to disobey the Lord God, as did Adam in eating of the tree of the fruit of knowledge.

The story is profound in its simplicity. Once we as humans gain the knowledge of good and evil, we start making choices and start taking responsibility for those choices.

These choices are both a blessing and a burden. They come with a cost. We each make individual choices. But we also make choices as families, communities and nations.

Genesis teaches us that sin is much more than the serpent tempting Eve to eat the apple, and Adam taking another bite.

We have to go beyond the literal meaning of the text and grasp God’s gift of free will, coming as it does with the risk of sin, and the temptation to use God’s gifts in a sinful way.

There’s a timelessness to this story of eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. We see it in many current issues in the scientific community and beyond on recent discoveries involving DNA, artificial birth, the creation of new life and cloning.

Many ethical issues of life and death have yet to be resolved. God gave us the skill and intellect to develop scientific knowledge. But we must use that scientific knowledge responsibly. We need to exercise our free will with discernment, otherwise we upset the balance of God’s creation.

Indeed many ethicists would argue we’ve already gone too far in upsetting that balance in our pursuit of material wealth.

Paul explains in the reading from Romans how Jesus is the new Adam. Just as the ancient Hebrews taught that sin came into the world through one man, Adam, so Paul tells us that God’s free gift in Christ Jesus is an act of grace which abounds for all.

Just as sin exercised dominion in death, so grace brings us etermal life through Jesus.

We notice in Paul a much different view of sin than our modern individualistic approach. Paul saw human beings as a vast network. Each part affects the whole.

English poet John Donne, a devout Christian, wrote “ no man is an island…any man’s death diminishes me.”

Paul believes that as Christians we enter into the divine life of Jesus. It is a free choice. Through Jesus we are made new.

Temptation remains a challenge for Paul and for us. In today’s Gospel we have a vivid depiction of Jesus facing temptation from the devil. The story has echoes of the Exodus story of the Hebrews. All the Hebrew scripture quotes from Jesus are from the Book of Deuteronomy.

Jesus goes into the wilderness alone, for a time of testing, fasting and struggle. We can’t escape the parallels with Moses. The wilderness. The high mountain. The 40 days.

Jesus responds to the challenges of the tempter: political power, ministry through bread, and the use of a sign to coerce faith. His response is rooted in the faith of his ancestors.

The Hebrew people learned they could not live by bread alone. They too were tested by God, and the wilderness as they sought the promised land. The Hebrews failed the test in the wilderness. But Jesus did not.

This story of temptation by power, by bread, by false idols, is something we continue to struggle with today. There is a great temptation for us to align ourselves with power, with privilege, with wealth.

Jesus calls us to resist that temptation and follow his command to love God and love our neighbours.

That means caring for others who are less fortunate, and addressing issues of poverty and racism.

Perhaps most important about this story is that it emphasizes the humanity of Jesus. Many centuries ago the early church concluded that Jesus is both fully human and fully divine. This mystery—a term we use to describe something we don’t fully understand—is to explain our unique understanding of Jesus as human, and also as God incarnate. Jesus is not some sort of super-being.

We believe he took on our human nature. So before he began his public ministry he had to go through testing and preparation for the time to come. If Jesus was a super-being, than the tests wouldn’t have made sense.

We believe Jesus went to the top of that mountain and refused the tempter’s offer to rule all the kingdoms of the world. He turned down the offer of making bread out of stones, and he spurned the idea of throwing himself off the temple and calling on Angels to deliver him.

Jesus took the humble path. He preached, he taught, he healed and he ministered to those in need.

That is our example as we begin our Lenten journey. We often think of Lent as a time to give up chocolate, or alcohol or something else we enjoy. But if we leave it there we risk trivializing a time of self-examination, a time of renewal, and a time for spiritual growth.