TO
VISIT:
A
GARDEN, A DESERT
AND
A HILL
INTRODUCTION
The title of my homily is, “3 Imaginary Places to Visit: A
Garden, a Desert and a Hill.”
When we read today's 3 readings, many themes and thoughts
come jumping up out of the text. I'd like to reflect on some of those themes and
images:
·
A Garden and It’s Trees
·
The Tree of Life in the Middle of the Garden
·
Serpents and Snakes Sneaking in the Grass
·
Temptation
·
Sin - Falls from Grace
·
Desert,
·
Temptations: the Big Ones
CLOSE YOUR EYES
I'd like to begin with a guided imagery and imagination trip.
Close your eyes and picture the following 3 scenes. Or picture the following as
a dream that you had and this is what you saw.
First of all, you're in a beautiful garden. There are lots
of trees - especially fruit trees. There are animals roaming around. They are
friendly - Bambi or Teddy Bear like. There are all kinds of flowers. The garden
is lush and beautiful. There are water falls and streams. Your feet like the feel
of green grass underfoot. Your eyes see the glistening fruit. Your ears are
picking up the musical sounds of this tropical paradise all around you.
As you’re meandering through the garden, you spot this special looking fruit tree. You stop.
It’s there that you begin to hear a hissing snake – with a seductive whispering
voice that says, “Take and eat!”
You hesitate because you had also heard another voice say,
“”Don’t take. Don’t eat from this tree. You can eat from any tree in the garden
except this one.”
You think, “There’s always a catch!”
You have entered a new phase of life. Up till you heard
those voices you thought, “All is good” - but now you realize there is forbidden fruit.
You think for a moment: there are plenty of other trees in
this garden to pick fruit from. You remember hearing that there is this other tree.
It’s called “The Tree of Life” and you know it’s in the middle of the garden.
So secondly, you go looking for that tree. You keep walking
around till you come to a hill. There it is: the tree in the middle of the
garden - The Tree of Life.
But this tree is not what you expected. It’s not a peaceful
moment as back there at the tree with the forbidden fruit.
This tree is different. You see a crowd of people crucifying
a naked man on that tree. They are spitting and cursing at him and you can't
believe that people can be that cruel to another human being
You hear the words, “Take and eat.”
You don’t. You wonder: “Should I go back to the other tree?
You remember that’s where you heard those same words, ‘Take and eat!’ You stand
there torn between both trees.”
You look at your watch. It’s getting late. You know will be
looking for you – in the garden - in the cool of the evening.
Next, the third image hits you. You picture yourself in a
desert for 40 days – the complete opposite of the garden. That place was easy. This place is tough.
You start to hear deep inner temptations – three big ones.
First you feel the temptation to sensuality - to pig out, to
stuff yourself with food, or stuff, or lust, or money and you are overwhelmed
in your body with the choices you have to make.
You say “No!” to this temptation. You choose to say, “Yes”
to the Spirit because you know there is
more to life than what you can see and taste and touch.
You ponder this choice – there in the desert – an experience
so, so different from your garden experience. Slowly you realize – as you look
back at the whole of your life - that this
first temptation is part of everyday life - moving in out of traffic - moving
in and out of gardens and deserts - and hills of your life.
Some days you feel all is perfect. Life is a garden. You’re
in paradise. Some days you feel hot and bothered. Life is a desert. You’re
being sand blasted.
Then you’re hit with the second temptation here in the
desert. You sense life’s struggles. Sometimes life feels like it’s all burden. You feel tempted to avoid work and choose the
easy way out by being superficial. It's the temptation to "flash" -
to try to dazzle the others with surface trash rather than substance. You
remember moments when you were in school and you had to write a term paper. You
fake it. You put together junk and you know it. You put your work in an
expensive binder. You put in graphs or pictures and use all the computer tricks
you know to make it look good. But down deep you know you didn't do your
homework.
Then comes the third temptation. You are tempted by power -
to Lord it over others. You have a job - any job - and people are under you and
you are tempted to use them or ignore them or not listen to them. You see it in
government. You see it in the Church, but now you see it in yourself. Power
corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. What will you do? What will you
choose?
You wake up! You open your eyes. You realize that life
sometimes is moments in a plush garden – where all is good – but from time to
time your eye spots forbidden fruit.
Sometimes its moments on a hill – seeing someone being crucified. And sometimes
it’s like being in a desert being hit by big time temptations.
TODAY'S READINGS: BEGINNING LENT
While I was doing the guided imagery above, what thoughts
hit you? Where did you go? What will Lent 2014 look like for you?
As we begin Lent, the
Church wants us to reflect on heavy duty stuff. Today it gives us 3 readings
that should be reflected on over and over again. We are in the garden of Eden
with Adam and Eve. We are in the Desert with Jesus. We are in the heart of Paul
as we find his thoughts in Romans and we have to do some heavy praying and
thinking.
Lent is a way of getting us to enter our hearts and see them
as a plush garden or as a dry empty desert – or as moments on a hill – sitting
under his cross – the Tree of Life.
Many churches – like our church – have this big barren cross
up here. How do we see it? Is it the
tree of life for us?
40 DAYS AND 40
NIGHTS
Lent provides us with 40 days to think about all these life
issues.
Take sin and temptations to sin. We know they are real. The
person who thinks they are without sin, let them turn over the first stone
within their hearts. Surprise they will find worms everywhere. Enter deeper
into ourselves and we’ll find snakes everywhere. We have snake pits within.
We also have fruit trees in abundance.
So we also have beautiful qualities.
But somehow as we grow older, we begin to discover the
knowledge of good and evil. We make choices and we eat of its fruit. We bite
into a beautiful apple and discover it's half rotten and a worm crawls within..
The temptation looked perfect from a distance, but we blocked out the
ramifications of our behavior.
Take original sin. We run into people who say that they
don't believe in Adam and Eve – that story about these two characters in the
early pages of the Bible. We run into people who tell us that they don't
believe in original sin.
We are tempted to laugh at them, but we choose not to. We
know everyone needs to learn all these things are both real and imaginary. They really exist – but they exist in every human
heart.
That’s what a myth is – a story – that helps us understand
our story.
Inside each of us is paradise, the garden, the tree with the
forbidden fruit on it – as well as the tree of life in the center mountain of
our heart – as well as the desert of emptiness.
Adam and Eve is our story. Christ is our story.
It takes time – and sometimes a life time of coming to
church – to hear these scriptures – these writings to see, to discover, to
learn that they are not just any literature. They are the thoughts of many
people put together over many re-tellings on basic human situations.
Have you wrestled with the idea of original sin? I do every
time I do a baptism of a baby. Here is
this tiny baby – innocent – and so, so cute. Then I am saying these prayers
over this baby – using words like, “kingdom of darkness” and “original sin” and
I feel “funny”.
Where is the God who says, “All is good!”
Why are we saying that this little brand new baby – has sin
within him or her?
Then I step back and realize – we’re looking at the big
picture here.
Give this kid time. Give this kid time to realize that life
has forbidden fruit and temptations in the deep desert periods of life. And
let’s give this kid – help – strength for the future. Give him or her parents
who will give him or her lots of love and good example.
I heard and have never forgotten the saying, “If you want to
change a person, you have to change his or her grandfather and grandmother.”
As humans we are tainted by sin. We are not God. We are also
tainted by God – and his goodness – and we wrestle all our lives with urges of
good and evil, sin and grace, the great tug of war of life.
The sacred scriptures, our bible, wrestle with this issue.
In Chapter 9 of John, in the story of the man born blind,
Jesus says he was not born blind because of the sins of his father. Yet – on
the other hand we have the DNA and the genes and the eyes of our fathers.
I’ve listened to tapes of people in ACOA – Adult Children of
Alcoholics – and yes patterns come down in families – good and bad. If our
grandparents could speak, maybe they
would say they are sorry for sins and bad example they have show and passed
down to us. Maybe they would say that they got them from their parents and back
and back and back. So greed begets greed. Lust begets lust. Anger begets anger.
I jump on someone for spilling coffee on my note pad and they are steaming at
being yelled at, so they go out and pick on someone else and the domino effect
of anger ripples across the world - starting with me. Or did I get angry
because someone yelled at me for spilling coffee twenty years ago. Hell, I was
just a kid.
But this is too simplistic an understanding of original sin
and sin in general. We have to go much deeper – and this enough – too much for
now.
Good thing we have one more Lent - and many Lents to come - to tackle
these big issues.
CONCLUSION
I sense each of us has to write our own Confessions like Augustine – to explain what we have come up on
all this as of today. Each of us has to write our own Letter to The Romans as
well. And let’s throw in the need to make imaginary journeys into the garden
and desert in our being – as well as stand under the cross of Jesus – and hear
him say, “Take and eat. Take and eat.” Amen.
