Rewind! I Lent 2008

1 Lent A 2008
(Gen 2: 15-17, 3: 1-7; Ps 32; Rom 5: 12-19; Mt 4: 1-11)


Have you ever wanted to hit the “rewind” button on your life?

A movie called “Being There” explored that. The main character was the live-in butler for a reclusive man. The butler’s whole life was watching TV with his remote control in hand. When the owner finally died and the butler had to venture out into the real world, his hand still clutched the remote. When something bad happened to him or to others, he stood and hit “stop” or “rewind”, and wondered why it was not working.

Rewind just does not work—not for something as small as a thoughtless remark or as far-reaching as a Presidential election. I know—I’ve tried in both cases.

Today sin is on the agenda, sin sin sin, and what do we do about it, and what does God do? Is there a rewind button to hit in the face of that most fascinating, recurring, uncomfortable topic in Christianity which is sin?

No. The very, very familiar story in Genesis still stands no matter what we do or say. How utterly familiar—Adam, Eve, snake, tree, fruit—and the ending is always the same. Everyone blames someone else, everyone gets kicked out. I like the Simpson’s version which gives Ned Flanders’ voice to God: “Darn diddle arn it, Eve!”

“They knew they were naked…” The moment of knowing they could choose, and then learning they could choose poorly, made that first lovely couple vulnerable. It is a deep story in spite of how many times we’ve told it. It’s the story of how things are, and how we are. And there is no rewind button.

Each of us replays the Garden of Eden as we are born and grow. Each of us loses that fresh-born, unself-conscious innocence. Life will do it. Some have it torn from them even earlier by loss or someone else’s cruelty. And we all grow into realizing that we have choices, and each choice we make becomes part of our history, for good or for ill. And there is no rewind button. I do not believe we are born instantly into some wicked state like some dark theologies would have us believe, with images of unbaptized babies going to hell. But we are born into history and all the choices that have gone before us, and we participate in this history more and more deeply as we grow.

To be human is to be tempted, to be beset with choices. It looks like no way out. But there is a way out. The way out is to go through.

The three first Gospels carefully tell today’s temptation story. They say that only God could make a way out of the mess of our own history. God takes human flesh and soul and walks through it all. With his hair still wet from his own baptism, Jesus walks wide-eyed into the desert. He allows the seductive voice to speak to him—manipulate life! Pretend you are completely in control! Turn stones into bread! Run the world! You know what’s best for other people’s lives! Be invulnerable! Worship the voice that says you can have everything, at all times, you can quiet your greed and your fear and your lust for power.

Jesus’ answers are simple—depend on God. Turn to God. Don’t be a super-hero, be human. Do not take from others the same freedom you yourself desire. Let God be God and be human flesh and bone, turning to God for all that is needed.

Since Jesus walked through, so can we. There is no rewind. But there is liberation and peace. Each of our choices, our history, our moments when we have harmed or been harmed, can be and are transformed when we are in the One who has gone before. In humility, he has triumphed. In him, so can we.

There’s no going back. But there is going forward to healing, vision, God, and glory.