Genesis 2.15-17; 3.1-11*, Matthew 4.1-11
The First Sunday of Lent, 26 February 2023
Austwick, Clapham
It was an ordinary tree; unremarkable to look at, just like all the other trees in the middle of the garden. The man and the woman paid no more or less attention to it than to any other tree there. Until, that is, they were led to see it as an object of desire.
And it was just an ordinary fruit; like all the other fruits on all the other trees in the middle of the garden. The man and the woman hardly noticed it; until, that is, they were encouraged to desire it.
Who told them the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes? Who planted the thought that the tree would make them wise?
It was the one who told them to reject the Lord God’s instruction to leave the tree alone.
It was the one who told them to ignore the Lord God’s advice that if they touched or ate of the fruit of the tree, they would die.
It was the one who said, “You will not 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.”
This tree is ordinary; which makes it quite different to the trees in other people’s creation stories, like the Asvattha tree of Hindu myth whose roots stretch upwards and branches downwards with no end nor beginning, or Yggdrasil, the world tree of Norse myth, a giant ash supporting the universe, or the talking tree in the founding myth of the Southwest American Yaquis people. [2]
Because the Genesis story tree is unremarkable, our focus shifts to what is happening between the characters in the story; which helps establish this foundational truth about human beings - that we are people who desire. It is our nature to want what others want, and to want to do what others are doing, to want to know what others know and to want to be the people that others appear to be; and the envy and the rivalry which these desires create, are at the heart of human society.
The woman in the garden made God her rival - as she was encouraged to envy what God had, as she was tempted to grasp after the knowledge which he held. So also we find ourselves fighting over things which may be in themselves unremarkable - like fruit or land or a desk in the office. Because other people desire these things which we desire, we make them our rivals.
Because someone else wants something, we want it, making that thing into an object of our collective desire. Whether this be fruit which we’re convinced will give us knowledge like God’s, or cars which make us look successful like the neighbours, or homes which will give us the same sense of self-satisfaction exuded by the well-to-do house-hunters on TV property shows.
When it comes to desiring knowledge, that is endemic in our society today. We live in what is called an information society; digital technology has transformed us into people who can know anything we want to know at the click of a keypad. Ours is a knowledge economy: so that the vast storage and sharing of information means that Morrisons knows your shopping habits and will personalise your money-off vouchers accordingly; your car insurance company knows exactly where you’ve been, and at what speeds, via your black box, and controversially, energy companies are switching off people’s electricity automatically if a monthly payment is delayed.
The other day I pressed the doorbell at my stepdaughter’s house in Ingleton and was taken aback when out of the doorbell came her voice, saying, “I can see you. We’re in the car driving back, we’ll be two minutes.” To borrow from the title of a popular recent drama series, through such technologies we have become people who can know, and can be, Everything Everywhere All At Once. Just… like… God….?
And as for desiring the knowledge of good and evil, this too is ubiquitous. Again, digital technology has enabled a spiralling increase of exchange of news and views about every subject under the sun. Social media platforms allow the unrestrained exchange of every kind of opinion: and everybody on them desires for their truth to be heard, for their knowledge of good and evil to be affirmed.
The resultant clamour can create situations like the invasion of Saint Michael's on Wyre by conspiracists broadcasting their theories about Nicola Bulley’s disappearance. So-called ‘culture wars’ over issues of sexuality, abortion, vaccination and even Tom Jones’s Delilah, are driven by people’s desire to uphold their particular knowledge of good and evil. We have cancel culture in which people who know and speak differently, are ostracised; we have incel culture in which young men who define themselves as unable to get a romantic or sexual partner despite desiring one, express their self-knowledge in self-pity and self-loathing, in resentment and hatred of women. The result of all this, as we know, is social carnage. [3]
It is our nature to want what others want, and to want to do what others are doing, to want to know what others know and to want to be the people that others appear to be. Who sold us the lie that if we follow these desires we will become free? Who told us that we can be naked in our pursuit of all knowledge, and know no shame?
Truth is, any society driven into runaway conflicts by its people’s endless desires cannot sustain itself. It’s a theme repeated throughout history. It’s over a century since W.B. Yeats published these words: ‘Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world’. But this poem seems as pertinent today as it did then. ‘The ceremony of innocence is drowned,’ his poem continues. And, ‘The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity.’ [4]
Small ancient societies such as the one which wrote the Genesis creation stories and the one in which Jesus lived, could not afford being indifferent to the threat of runaway conflict. They knew that to hold their community together they had to impose limits on the pursuit of their desires. Thus came the Ten Commandments, saying, ‘You shall not kill… commit adultery… steal… or bear false witness against your neighbour.’ The tenth and last commandment, rather than prohibiting an act instead forbids a desire: ‘You shall not desire the house of your neighbour. You shall not desire your neighbour’s wife, nor his slave, nor his ox or ass, nor anything that belongs to him.’
Now, such religious prohibitions are fiercely criticised, hated and widely ignored today. Modern thinkers blame religion in general and the Judeo-Christian tradition in particular for succumbing to a gratuitous itch to prohibit, to an irrational hatred of freedom.
But we are here on the first Sunday of Lent because we desire to follow the example of Christ in the wilderness; to follow our instinct that only our restraint can create the necessary space for our flourishing. That only our humility can create the necessary conditions for our humanity.
Who would tell us otherwise, and why would they do so?
Notes
* I've added a couple of verses on to the end of the lectionary reading for the day.
[1] The discussion here draws from Paul Nuecterlein’s exegetical notes and resources in his Girardian Lectionary Reflections for Lent1a. In particular, as referenced by Nuecterlein, James Warren, Compassion Or Apocalypse?: A Comprehensible Guide to the Thought of Rene Girard, pp. 40-44.
[2] James Warren, Compassion Or Apocalypse?: A Comprehensible Guide to the Thought of Rene Girard, pp. 40-44; Wikipedia: Asvattha; Yggdrasil.
[3] Marianna Spring, Why TikTok sleuths descended on Nicola Bulley’s village. BBC News, 18 February 2023; Olivia Gantzer, Tom Jones 'quite shocked' by Delilah ban as Welsh singer 'proud' of the anthem. Express, 6 February 2023; Wikipedia: Cancel culture; Incel.
[4] W.B. Yeats, The Second Coming; Wikipedia: The Second Coming (poem).
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