Bible Tuesday

    And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed.  And out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  

Genesis 2:8-9

The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.  And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, "You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die."

Genesis 2:15-17

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God actually say, 'You shall not eat of any tree in the garden'?"   And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden,  but God said, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.'"  But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not surely die.  For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."   So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and 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 3:1-6

So there you have it.  'The Fall'.  I have read this story many times.  I have sat through many, many sermons about it too.  And I have always believed that this first sin was simple disobedience.  God said 'don't', Adam and Eve did.  Pretty simple, right? 

But I am beginning to think that might be too simplistic of an explanation.  I think the sin in this 'fall' is Adam and Eve's inability to be satisfied with the good things that God had given them.  They had more than enough.  God had placed them in a paradise.  It appears that all the animals were friendly.  There is no indication that they had to deal with any danger whatsoever.  They were given dominion over everything and every tree in the garden was given to them for food...except one. 

And the serpent can't wait to point out what God has withheld from Eve.  Does he do that to you too?  If you're not sure, I can help.  Is your life pretty dang awesome?  I mean, are your kids healthy?  Do you have running hot water?  Access to antibiotics?  If you have all these great things but you are constantly worried about getting something else, there's a pretty good chance that's the devil.  And please don't let that exempt you from personal responsibility.  When the enemy starts reminding you about what you don't have, try telling him what you already possess.  Imagine if Eve had said to the sepent, "Look snake, you can't seriously think I would be interested in one piece of fruit when I have all these other things to choose from?" 

In 10 Conversations You Need to Have With Your Children, Rabbi Schmuley Boteach puts it this way:

"Do you know what the greatest destroyer of mankind is?  It's his insatiability.  Nothing is ever enough."

 He goes on to say:

"The classical, Jewish interpretation is that the serpent is a metaphor for insatiability.  The snake slithers along the ground eating dust, which is plentiful but never satisfying...
Now he spreads his insatiability by biting Eve and putting that same poison into her, and she in turn passes it on to Adam...Nothing excites them anymore...Only the forbidden fruit captures their interest, and so they become fixated on what they can't have.  And that is how it begins...This is what drives them out of the garden.  They will never be satisfied.  Paradise is lost to them."

We live in a world of more.  Every Christmas season is an orgy of consumerism (I'm guilty here big time.)  January brings an avalanche of "Get organized" sales wherein we are urged to buy pretty plastic boxes to hold all the crap we no longer have room for.  We spend thousands on systems to 'organize' our closets so that we can keep enough stuff to clothe an small African village.  We hire professionals to tell us where to put all our stuff and none of them ever seem to suggest Goodwill.  We are ashamed to open our garage doors because that's where we hide all the stuff we can't seem to fit anywhere else.  And despite all that, not a shopping mall in the whole country will be empty this weekend.  Because it's just never enough.