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A Sermon Preached at St. Christopher's Episcopal Church, Oak Park, IL
on the First Sunday in Lent, February 10, 2008 (Year A, RCL)
by the Rev. Paris Coffey

Readings: Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7; Psalm 32; Romans 5:12-19; Matthew 4:1-11

"So when the woman saw . . . that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate." - Genesis 3:6

Although Joan Rivers jokes that Elizabeth Taylor is the only woman she knows who "stands in front of a microwave yelling, "Hurry up," the truth is that most of us are impatient. We're impatient when MapQuest promises 23 minutes for the shortest route to our destination and it takes 40 instead. We're impatient when a sixteen-year-old behind the drive-through window at a fast food joint takes longer than . . . say, two minutes to deliver our order. We're impatient when our high speed internet is too slow in downloading the information we want. And we're impatient when the doctor keeps us waiting, our coffee takes too long to cool, or it takes more than twelve minutes to wrap up a sermon.

We want things NOW, perhaps more so than ever in the technological age in which we live. On the other hand, impatience isn't new to the twenty-first century, for as we see in today's Old Testament reading, Adam and Eve want knowledge and they want it now. Oh perhaps not at first. At first they delight in the Garden where every need is supplied by God. All of that changes, though, when the serpent comes on the scene, cozying up to Eve and saying ever so sweetly, "Excuse me, but I couldn't help overhearing. Did God say you shouldn't eat from any tree in the garden?"

Feigned concern oozes from the serpent's voice as he suggests poor Eve might starve to death if she depends on God. Eve, though, innocent as a lamb, detects nothing amiss. And why should she when the serpent appears not as some venomous viper threatening death, but as a concerned companion interested only in Eve's welfare? "Surely," says the serpent, "God wouldn't deprive you of nourishment!" suggesting that perhaps God would do just that. "Hasn't God given you this lovely garden?" he asks, adding, "He MUST expect you to eat." Eve, taking the bait hook, line and sinker, answers, "Oh no, God says we can eat of any tree in the garden except that one right in the middle. That one," she whispers conspiratorially, "we are not even to touch, or we will surely die."

It's a slight exaggeration on Eve's part, since God hasn't said a word about not touching the tree. Nevertheless, it makes a better story, opening a door for the devil, who says coyly, "Oh come now, Eve. You're too smart to believe that. It's a setup, for God knows that if you eat the fruit of that tree you'll be as wise as God" . . . and suddenly Eve is covetous of wisdom. As the author of Genesis writes, "The tree was to be desired to make one wise, (and so) she took of its fruit and ate; and she gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate."

I guess women always wise up before men. In any event, they both wise up fast, getting exactly what they wanted. They get wisdom, and with it that sinking feeling that something is wrong - that THEY've done something wrong - and that life will never be the same again. Arguably, God intended Adam and Eve - intended US - to have wisdom; otherwise why would God have put such a tree smack dab in the middle of the garden in the first place? Likely, though, God meant them to have it more slowly - getting to know their Creator in the safety of the Garden before being thrust out into the world.

Nonetheless, like twenty-first century men and women, Adam and Eve are impatient. They want fast-food, instant-fix wisdom that can shed pounds of naïveté with a single pill. They want knowledge before they know what to do with it, and they get it. In fact, if we were to read a little further in Genesis we'd find that God casts Adam and Eve out of the garden into the real world where wisdom has to be learned the hard way. In the Garden, God supplies everything, so that all Adam and Eve have to do is pluck food from the ground. After their expulsion, though, they have to till the ground, working hard for what psychologist Abraham Maslow calls in his "hierarchy of needs" the physiological basics of food, water, shelter and sleep. Obviously such basics are essential to human life, but also to wisdom, says Maslow, for without them human beings can't move to the next level of development.

Maslow is sometimes heralded as the father of humanistic psychology for his insight on human development. The truth, though, is that the devil in today's Gospel Reading understands these levels of need long before Maslow sets them down. In fact, encountering Jesus in the wilderness, the devil tempts this human God at his most basic level of need. "Show your stuff," the Devil says to Jesus who hasn't eaten for 40 days and is famished! "Turn these stones to bread."

Jesus, though, refuses to take the bait and so the Devil moves to the next two levels of need - the need for safety and belonging. Taking him to the pinnacle of the temple the devil says, ""If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down," tempting Jesus to prove not only that God loves him - that he belongs to God - but that God will keep him safe. This time the devil quotes Scripture, but again Jesus defies him, quoting Scripture right back at him. Consequently, the devil tries again, moving this time to Maslow's highest two levels of need as he shows Jesus the power and riches of the world. "All these I will give you," says the devil, appealing to our need for the respect of others, for achievement, and self-actualization - which in this case is false. Jesus, though, again resists, casting Satan out of the wilderness with a vow to "worship God and serve only him."

It's a rather different outcome than that of Adam and Eve, whose encounter with the devil casts them out. And yet for this very reason, Jesus' encounter is critical to us, showing us that our struggle against temptation is essential to wisdom. Moreover, it's essential to ministry, for only after 40 days in the wilderness is Jesus prepared to go out and reveal God to the world. There are no shortcuts, for we cannot know the true power of God unless we've struggled against the false spirit and prevailed. Only then can we know God - fountain of wisdom and source of strength; only then can we minister in the world.

Jesus knew this when he allowed himself to be led by the spirit into the wilderness after his baptism, when he could have done otherwise. He could, for example, have rushed onto the world's stage and capitalized on the moment after hearing God say at his baptism, "This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased." He could have hired a good PR man to increase his exposure, going on tour to build momentum. Instead, though, Jesus went into the wilderness, recognizing that what he needed was not exposure but preparation - FORTY long and lonely days of preparation - to discover who he was and what kind of Messiah he would be.

Forty days and forty nights in the wilderness! It seems like a long time, but time is important, not only for Jesus, but for US to discover who we are and what kind of disciples we will we be. Without doubt we might prefer a high speed answer with a quick-fix, microwavable form of preparation. We might prefer the shortest, guaranteed route to God. Lent, though, patterned after Jesus' time in the wilderness, offers us forty days instead. Forty days to examine and battle our own temptations; forty days to recognize our underlying need for God; forty days to reflect on Scripture in worship, at Bible Encounter and at home, not as a gun to shoot the devil down but as a means to interact with God; in short, forty days to get to know ourselves and God so that we can be Christ's presence in the world.

Actually, when you think about it, it's not a lot of time. In fact, since Lent begins on Ash Wednesday, we've already used up four. Sundays don't count, since Sunday is always an Easter day, which means we only have 36 left. Thirty-six days and six Sundays to encounter not only the devil but God in the wilderness . . . it's not a lot of time after all, so let's get to it.

Amen.