Sermon Text: Genesis 3.1-24 Title: "The Temptations"

Preached: February 21, 1999

One of the first things I bought, when I moved to California,

was a fingernail clipper. Understand: it was not something that I had desperately needed for ages and ages, not something which was unavailable on the East coast. It was simply that I could not find any of my other nail-clippers -- which is, I guess, a normal turn of events. Although I have purchased, perhaps, hundreds of nail clippers, they have found for themselves new places to live. When I need them, they are no longer home.

So I travelled to K-Mart, where I found lots of seductive junk, bright and shiny baubles of many colors and shapes and sizes, in a lot of different locations; I found no nail clippers. I travelled to the Drug Store -- Rite Aid, I think. Again, all kinds of things I had never seen in a Pharmacy before: canned soup, gewurztraminer, thunderbird... But I could not find any nail clippers. I was becoming frustrated. I walked over to the grocery store thinking,

"Maybe, somewhere... "

When I entered Safeway and actually thought about where to find the elusive clippers, I recognized my difficulty: all along I had been looking in the wrong places. I was looking out in the aisles, with the merchandise, with the health care stuff, or the foot care stuff, or the beauty care stuff, or the bath care stuff. The nail clippers weren't with any of THAT stuff. They were with the impulse buying stuff, the stuff that they cram into the tiny aisles at the front where you check out. Nail clippers, which are always misplaced by everyone, are offered by the cash register while they make you wait interminably in the line. They figure that if you have to wait long enough, you'll see the logic in buying your nail clipper, or mini-flashlight, or refrigerator magnet, or double mint gum, or whatever, before you really need it.

As I picked up my new clippers, before taking them home to use them once and, as quickly as possible, to hide them irretrievably from myself, I looked around the checkout line. I thought: there is not much here which I truly need -- indeed, I really didn't need the nail clippers; I could have found some if I had spent an hour or so in a concentrated search around the house for one of the several thousand that must be lurking somewhere. The space by the register is a place of temptation, where the marketing serpents have marshalled their greatest talents to tempt you into one, or two, or three last totally unnecessary purchases. Right by the register is where, without even much thought, you gather up stuff you do not need.

And yet, it is also a shrine of the American way. For it is so American to plot ingenuously for the hearts and souls and dollars of other Americans: who get bored very quickly with waiting in line, who like to spend money as a way to fight off boredom, who love to acquire extra stuff, and who will justify buying a second thing just in case something happens to the first one. Marketers do not even need to develop any ploy beyond putting the stuff out there and hoping the line moves slow enough. The snake doesn't even have to talk; we'll grab the apple every time.

I am willing to admit that I have some problems with the story told by the Yahwist in Genesis from 2.15 or so, up to the end of chapter 3 -- the story of the temptation of the human beings, of their eating the forbidden fruit and its consequences. I am troubled, for instance, by the portrayal of our loving, caring God as setting them up -- entrapping them. For if they do not already know the difference between good and evil, how would they know that disobeying the commandment was evil? And if they already know the difference, then what difference will it make if they do eat? I wonder why God would not want humans to know the difference between good and evil. Moreover, in the story, God says that they would die on the day they ate the fruit, but they do not; is the serpent being more truthful than God? When they get kicked out of the garden, it's because they might eat from the tree of immortality; but before they ate the fruit of knowledge of good and evil, weren't they going to be immortal anyway?

I would be severely troubled by these questions, and others, if I did not understand that what we read in Genesis is story and not history. It was written, or at least codified, about a thousand years before the birth of Jesus, about the time of King David, and so several millennia after even the staunchest of Biblical literalists believe the events happened. No memory, transmitted orally, could have possibly survived that long with any degree of accuracy. Beyond any question of historical accuracy, however, I feel that it is important for us not to search for historical fact in these old, old stories, but to search diligently for the deep religious truths they seek to convey. So I can set aside my problems and questions about the story -- they are like snakes I've dredged up, but non-poisonous and non-lethal; we can let them crawl around your consciousness when you get home.

Instead of killing off my snakes, I would rather focus on part of the meaning of the story. In particular, I want to focus on the view of temptation offered by the oldest of Old Testament writers. For it seems that the way human beings face temptation is central to the story.

I spent a lot of time this week trying to decide exactly how it was that the human beings are tempted in the story. The temptation is portrayed in the interchange between the serpent and Eve. The setting is the garden of Eden, where everything grew in abundance. There is, as far as we can tell, peace and plenty. Adam and Eve, man and woman, have enough of everything. Within the setting of having enough, then, that crafty old snake makes the suggestion to Eve that she's been given misinformation about the fruit of the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. He says: "You know, you won't die if you eat it."

Now that hardly seems like a hard sell. If someone tells me I won't die if I eat roasted cockroaches, that won't convince me to pop some on the grill and get the barbecue sauce going. But Eve looked at the tree. Although she has enough food already, she sees that the fruit of the tree is good for food. The convincer, however, is that if she eats, she might get something she doesn't already have: she'll get wisdom. So she and Adam go ahead and eat and they don't die, and they do become wise.

I don't think that the story-teller viewed it as a bad thing, necessarily, to be wise. Remember that, about the time the story was written, Solomon was celebrated because he was wise. Yet, something happens in the story which is not a good thing. I believe that the story tells us that temptation happens when we want something more than enough. We are tempted when we have enough, but still want more. In the case of Eve, she has enough to eat, but wants wisdom in addition -- you might even make the case that she wants quick and easy wisdom, instead of the wisdom you gain and earn by living.

For our society, when I read this story, and I think about how we become tempted, I remember the stuff at the checkout line. Again, no hard sell, just a thought: what is 59 cents compared with the rest of this stuff. And the extension of that thought: why not upgrade the computer? Why not upgrade the car? Why not get an SUV, one of those Suburban Commando trucks that count as cars? Why not get a big screen tv? And I realized that wanting more than simply enough extends beyond even greed and acquisition. Give me any of the seven deadly sins and I'll give you a temptation which begins with wanting more than simply enough.

Pride begins with wanting more status than is necessary, wanting more self-confidence than is necessary, wanting more self-concern than necessary. Rage begins with wanting our own way more than is necessary -- think about, for instance the impatience which leads to road rage. Lust, more gratification; sloth, more relaxation; gluttony, more satisfaction. Whenever we begin to want more than simply enough, we reach for some new apple, which we've been told is not good for us.

The good news today is that God gives us enough. The garden of Eden may be part of a story, but it conveys a truth about the world we've been given: there is enough to go around, if we distribute it properly. And we in America, certainly, have access to enough. The challenge, however, is the extension of the good news: we need to learn when enough is enough. We are not very good with self-discipline, and have built a society in which seduction is called marketing. We need to be able to say, I have enough food, I have enough clothing, I have enough CD's, I have enough savings, I have enough security, I have enough wives, I have enough status, I have enough pleasures, I have enough relaxation, I have enough work to do.

And when we recognize all the ways we have enough, we may also recognize what we've been missing. And when we recognize all the ways we have enough, we may realize that others do not. And when we recognize all the ways that we have enough, we may see the bounties God continues to provide. And when we recognize all the ways we have enough, we may become just a little bit more willing to share.

God is good. May our stay in the garden be full of wonder.