"What's So Original About Sin?" - Lent 1A

Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7
Saint Matthew 4:1-11

Almost every week a friend of mine, who is a psychologist, and I have lunch.  It is a mutually therapeutic time in which we talk about the perils of each other’s professions.  We also have a wide-ranging conversation about sports, politics, travel, and other events in each other’s lives. 
 

One day we were talking about the occasions when people would come into our offices and say: “Doctor, Pastor, I have something to tell you about myself that is going to shock you.”
 

Don’t try this because it won’t work!
 

We both agreed that, at this point in our careers, we were un-shockable.  I’ve done this for a very long time and to become a licenced psychologist he has had to work in some very dicey places with some pretty “interesting” people.
 

He said that when people open a session with the suggestion that something they are about to tell him is so shocking that he won’t believe it his internal reaction is to say to himself: “Bring it on!” 
 

It is well that he makes his living at counseling and I don’t because once when an upset parishioner came to me and proclaimed, “Pastor, I’m in the most sinful state I’ve ever been in” I asked her if she had ever been to Nevada.  Undeterred by her puzzled expression I continued, “I’ve been there and it’s a really sinful state.” For some reason it was at this point that she excused herself.
 

We agreed that, after years of doing our respective jobs, we were like the guy in the  Farmer’s Insurance Hall of Claims commercials who after every unspeakable catastrophe says: “Seen it.  Covered it.  At Farmer’s Insurances we know a thing or two because we have seen a thing or two.”
 

During the course of our careers the good doctor and I have seen and covered so much ground in the foibles and shortcomings of the human condition that very few “sinful states” are able to surprise.
 

Mark Twain famously said “I don’t know why Adam and Eve get so much credit. I could have done just as well.”  There is nothing so original about their sin that it should surprise us in the least.

Sin is the all too human condition in which all of us spend a lot of out time in and then trying to get out of.  There is nothing new about it.

Remember old Adam? God put the first hominids in a lush garden  . . .  rich and bountiful.  God said, “be fruitful and multiply” (The most gracious command God ever gave us). Oh, and one other thing, “Stay off that tree over there. You can eat fruit from the hundreds of other trees, but not that tree.”

Well, you know the story. The minute God’s back was turned, Adam saw the forbidden fruit looking tasty and even more appealing because of God’s prohibition.

“Did God really say,” asked the serpent, the first theologian, “you won’t die?” So Adam took and ate, and Eve did the same and let’s just say human innocence (if that’s what it was) lasted for maybe fifteen minutes.1

What was the sin?  Eating the apple?  No.  Their sin was believing that the rules didn’t apply to them. 
 

We can think of countless major examples of how this works but, since spring training has just begun I am going to use our National Pastime as an illustration.

The Houston Astros won the World Series in 2017 after scoring the most runs in baseball in the regular season. They also had the most total bases and the highest team batting average.

[This was because] according to a report by The Athletic  . . .  they often knew what pitches were coming because of a scheme using a camera and a trash can.2

The camera was mounted in center field and transmitted a feed to a television near the Astros’ dugout.  A player would watch the television and bang on a nearby trash can or blow a whistle to signal if an off-speed pitch or fastball was coming.
 

Anybody who watches baseball at home can predict with reasonable accuracy what kind of a pitch is coming when the shot of home plate is coming from the center field camera.  Not only the signs flashed but where the catcher sets up behind the plate will tell  the pitch and the desired location.

Try this when you are watching a game with a novice.  Watch carefully and then say to your partner, “Curve balls inside” or “a fast ball at the letters.”  I did this to poor Lowell and he was amazed!
 

Sign steeling is something that has gone on forever in major league baseball.  It won’t take long for a runner on second to pick up the signs and try to relay them to the batter  which is why the catcher often will walk out to the mound  to change signs.  This is a part of the game that takes more coordination than a camera and a trash can.
 

A good batter will watch a pitcher to see if his motion, or the way he holds his glove, is different for every pitch but this takes careful observation.  Watching a television and blowing a whistle takes no skill at all.
 

Former major leaguer Gregg Olsen, in his list of unwritten baseball rules pushes the idea of rules almost to the limit saying: “Stealing signs is OK, just don’t get caught. If your signs are easy enough to steal, it’s your fault. If you get caught sign stealing, someone gets hit.“3
 

That statement is a perfect example of how sin works.
 

Sin tells us that what we are doing is perfectly fine, so long as you don’t get caught.  Go ahead Adam and Eve, eat the apple so long as God doesn’t find out.

 Sin also tells us it’s somebody else’s fault anyway.  Just as if your signs are that easy to steal, it’s your fault everybody in the garden is busy blaming ever one else. Adam blames Eve, and Eve blames the serpent, and the serpent just smiles knowing that these two have been duped.
 

Just as sign stealing results in somebody getting hit by a pitch (Entering Thursday night’s game against the Washington Nationals, Houston Astros batters had been hit by more pitches this spring than any other team.)  the creation story’s sin results in the first couple getting the old “heave ho” from the garden.
 

At least Adam and Eve were after something worthwhile!  The diabolical one, the tempter, tells them that if they ate of the fruit they would be like God.  That is a very high prize because having all the powers of God is something worth possessing. All the Astros received for their efforts was, in the words of Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred, “a piece of metal.”
 

Winning the World Series would make them, for a year at least, the gods of the baseball world.  They were, but at was cost?  Cheating cost them their reputations and in some cases even their jobs. 
 

Sin is like that, sometimes it can cost a lot and sometimes it can cost you everything when it veers you off course and beckons you to follow its tempting ways.
 

Jesus knew what he was doing and he knew what was at stake when he was tempted in the wilderness.  What was at stake was nothing less than your salvation and mine.
 

Even when he is famished and the tempter comes Jesus knows it “is better to remain hungry than to take the bait.  He knows he is the Beloved; there is no need to call upon angels to prevent his crash into the temple courtyard.  He has no need of worldly kingdoms and their splendors, he knows who holds the future” and it is no less than God, the real God!

Ultimately what we have before us this day are two stories.  

One is our story.  It is a story of our falling and failing.  It is a story of our trying to “be our own god” and ignoring the written and unwritten rules of baseball and of life.  We may hate to admit it but we know that if left to our own devices our lives often descend into chaos and confusion.
 

We know that Mark Twain was right and that we could have done just as well if not better than Adam and Eve.  But we also know that our ways can lead us into a state more sinful than Nevada.  Our ways can lead us into a state of separation from God and from each other.  That, like it or not, is our story.
 

The second story is God’s.  It is a redemption story that looks at all we have done and all those times when we have given in and says, “Do you think what you’ve done surprises me?  Not in the least.  I’ve been there and done that.  Because of Jesus,” God says, “I know temptation too.  Never-the-less, I love you and you are mine.”
 

That kind of love triumphs over temptation every time and it is worth more than any piece of metal or anything else in the whole word.  And we never have to do anything for it because it is ours in Jesus Christ our Lord.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.