A Homily for the 1st Sunday of Lent (A)
[Temptation of Christ, 1854, by Ary Scheffer]
In today’s first reading we encounter that familiar first scene in the long, complex drama of human history. Even though they are not named, we know it is the story of Adam and Eve, our First Parents, who were created in the image and likeness of God, filled with the breath of God’s own Spirit so to live as children of God. They were crowned with glory, and given dominion over the world. They were made to worship God; that is, to live not by bread alone but in obedience to every word that comes from the mouth of God. However, they decided to put the Lord to the test, by trying to seize for themselves all that God had already promised to give them. Why? Because they chose to believe the lie of Satan, that they could be “like gods who know what is good and what is evil.” We call this first scene “Original Sin.”
The final scene in this drama of human history will be Christ’s Second Coming and the Last Judgment. Everything in between is connected to both Original Sin and to the Last Judgment.
However, today’s world has largely forgotten about these two pivotal milestones in human history. We think that we have made so much progress in science and technology, and this leads to the temptation to think that we are totally self-sufficient. We are tempted to think that we are not affected by the consequences of original sin, and that we will not be judged by a higher power — namely God — after we die.
The temptation to think like that is just another version of Satan’s original lie to our First Parents in the Garden. Satan has convinced us that since we have learned to dominate our physical and material world, that we have no need for God, because we have become gods ourselves. It is the same lie that tricked Adam and Eve.
As we begin the holy season of Lent, the Church is exposing this ancient lie. The Church calls us to pay special attention to our sins and sinful tendencies, precisely because we do not want to forget the bigger story that gives real meaning to our lives by reminding us that we are not self-sufficient. In fact, it is only by acknowledging our dependency on God that we are truly free and fully human.
Since Original Sin is one of the most important chapters in the drama of human history, and one of the most misunderstood, let us take a few minutes to recall what this most important of doctrines is all about. There are three things to keep in mind about Original Sin: the Fact, the Cause, and the Effect.
The fact is that Original Sin happened. It is part of God’s revelation. In the Catechism of the Catholic Church, this fact is clearly stated: “The account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place in the beginning of the history of man. Revelation gives us the certainty of faith that the whole of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents” (CCC #390).
As fallen human being we are constantly tempted to blame evil on abstract social structures, or to chalk up sin to psychological traumas. In other words, we are tempted to deny, ignore, or belittle the real source of evil in the world: Original Sin and its effects. If we give in to those temptations we will end up closing ourselves off from God. We will lose touch with reality. If our sinful behaviors are only due to poor upbringing and psychological trauma then we do not need a savior to bring us forgiveness, we just need psychotherapy. If all the evils in the world stem from inept politicians and faulty economic systems then we do not need God’s grace to change our hearts.
The second key doctrine about Original Sin has to do with what actually happened. In other words, what was the cause of Original Sin. The Church points out that the account from the Book of Genesis that we heard in our first reading is told in figurative language; not historical or scientific language. This means that the Scriptural account expresses the truth about WHAT happened, but not necessarily the exact details of HOW it happened. While we can speculate about the HOW, we can never speculate about the WHAT.
Adam and Eve were created by God as morally free beings. God created them in His image and likeness, which meant that they were capable of living in friendship with Him, of knowing Him, and loving Him. However, friendship with God is unique because God is God and we are dependent on Him. To live in friendship with God, who is the only source of our true happiness, we must admit and accept the fact that we are dependent. The Catechism puts it this way, “The ‘tree of knowledge of good and evil’ symbolically evokes the insurmountable limits that man, being a creature, must freely recognize and respect with trust. Man is dependent on his Creator and subject to the laws of creation and to the moral norms that govern the use of freedom” (CCC #396).
Adam and Eve uprooted themselves from the soil of God’s friendship because they resented the fact that they were not equal to God, and this is the essence of Original Sin. Again, from the Catechism, “Man let his trust in his Creator die in his heart and, abusing his freedom, disobeyed God’s command. This is what man’s first sin consisted of. All subsequent sin would be disobedience toward God and lack of trust in his goodness” (CCC #397).
So now we know that Original Sin happened, it is a fact, and that it consisted of our First Parents rebelling against their dependence on God. The third key point about Original Sin is that it affected not only Adam and Eve, but the whole human race.
As God is a communion of Three Divine Persons, He created us as a communion, the communion of family. So when our First Parents rebelled against God, the whole family suffered the consequences. Adam and Eve’s hiding in the garden symbolizes the alienation that they felt from God; an alienation that has been passed on to us. The fig leaves that they wore symbolizes the tendency to be selfish that we all have. Eve’s pain in childbirth and Adam’s toil and sweat to earn a living symbolizes that there is now an adversity of the forces of nature. Lastly, “By our first parents’ sin, the devil has acquired a certain domination over man, even though man remains free” (CCC #407). Original Sin was not only the origin of sin, but of the whole battle between good and evil that marks the history of every human life and community. We all now have two tendencies built into us; the tendency towards goodness, which is that part of our nature that God created us with, and the tendency towards selfishness, which is that part of our nature that is fallen. We only need to read the daily newspaper to see the effects that the battle between these two tendencies in the human heart has on the world.
This reflection on the nature of Original Sin can seem very discouraging at first glance: that life is a battle that we cannot escape and will not end until we die. However, Original Sin is only the beginning of the story.
God did not abandon us. He had every right to, but He didn’t. Just as God searched out Adam and Eve when they were hiding in the garden, God searches for us too. And most importantly He has sent us a Savior: Jesus Christ.
Unlike the first Adam, Jesus, the new Adam, never disobeyed God the Father. Jesus never allowed His trust in His Father to die. That is the lesson from today’s Gospel. Despite the dire temptations in the desert, Jesus stayed faithful to His Father by being dependent on Him. Jesus’ battle with Satan did not end after those forty days in the desert. Satan continued to tempt Him right up to His death on the Cross. Jesus defeated the devil, repairing the rift torn open by Original Sin, not by becoming all-powerfully self-sufficient but by being faithfully dependent on the Father.
Christ gives us food for the journey, the Eucharist, to strengthen us for the battle. He has promised to walk with us, leading us every step of the way. Lent is a time to renew our commitment to follow Christ. Trust and depend on Him!
