1st Sunday of Lent - 2/22/26

Here is the transcript for today’s homily:

Lent being the time of returning to the basics. You know, we begin Lent then with the story of the original sin, the thing that has plagued us for the entire history of the human race. But I think we've done a little bit of a disservice to the story of Genesis, the story of Adam and Eve in the first fall. Growing up, my um my dad had a little children's picture Bible. I have no idea where it is today, but I remember it so vividly. A little children's picture Bible. every night that was my bedtime story. My dad would pick up the little picture Bible and he would read to me the different stories and I remember with such such um vibrancy the some of the pictures in the book. I remember, you know, Noah and the animals getting on the ark. I remember the drawing of the little rainbow over the flood waters as they were dissipating. I remember Adam and Eve standing in the garden with, you know, the snake just crawling around by their feet with an apple in its mouth. And they were naked with their fig leaves and Eve's very long flowing hair that covered the rest of her. And I remember all of that with great detail, but I think things like that can do a little disservice. I don't think my dad was wrong. I think my dad was a great dad for doing that, for reading those stories. I think that was important. And it and it put that that image of faith and the image of the the stories of our faith in my head from a very young age. The problem is too often we don't move past the childness of it. We don't grow and mature and allow the scriptures to truly speak for themselves. And to the point where when we think of the story of Adam and Eve, we think of it like a children's bedtime story or we think of it as primitive people or an ancient religion that oh, you know, bless their hearts, they didn't have any science, how cute, you know, that sort of thing. So, let's go back to the basics then at the beginning of Lent. Let's go into that story and really break open what Genesis was. Number one, and I don't know why this annoys me, but it does. It was not an apple. Nowhere in scripture does it use the word apple. Scripture uses the word fruit. And Eden was in Jerusalem. Apple trees still today do not grow in Jerusalem. Pomegranates do. And actually the church fathers referred to it as a pomegranate. The pomegranate is a symbol of female fertility. Taking to yourself control over what God has just done. Creation. It was a beautiful image. In fact, it didn't become an apple until the the Renaissance when some artist painted an apple and then everybody called it an apple after that. But it was always just the fruit. Scripture always refers to it as the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. But also, we think of it as like the devil is like this little garden snake. I remember a few years ago on Palm Sunday, not here, but in my former assignment, a little green garden snake was on the steps of the church on Holy Thursday and everybody made a big deal about it. Oh, look, it's it's this the ancient serpent. It's the serpent from the garden because when you look at those pictures, those paintings, those little child pictures, what is this? What is the devil in the Garden of Eden? A little green garden snake. A little lime green noodle. That's not what's in scripture, though. Read Genesis 3 again. God looks at the ancient serpent and he says to the serpent, "Because you have done this, from this day forward, on your belly shall you crawl." Which means it was not crawling on its belly prior to the fall. It didn't slither up to the feet of Adam and Eve and tempt them. In fact, the word that we translate serpent is a terrible translation. And in the Hebrew, the word is nahash. Nahash is also used when Moses is confronting Pharaoh and he challenges Pharaoh's magicians to throw their staffs on the ground. And it says that as the magicians threw their staffs on the ground, their staffs turned into nahashes. Serpents nahash. And the serpents would were slithering around and then Moses threw his staff on the ground and his staff turned into a nahash and it ate the magician's nahashes. Read it in different languages. What you find is it wasn't a serpent. It was an alligator that the they threw their staffs on the ground. They became alligators crawling around. And Moses's staff became a larger alligator that swallowed the magician's alligators. Now, hash doesn't mean serpent. Doesn't mean alligator. It doesn't mean snake. It means great terrible dragon.

I kind of, this is just my speculation, but you know, like um old English fairy tales or English folklore, the dragon is always attacking the castle. You always have to have his night and shining armor to destroy the the giant dragon that's wing, you know, winged and flying around and breathing fire and somehow also speaking speaking English. I wonder if those sorts of dragons come from the imagination of reading Genesis. That I think is what we need to think of when we read this story. It's not just this cute little green noodle snake, but it's a great terrible being standing upright and speaking to the woman.

Did Adam and Eve know good and evil before eating the fruit?

I would argue yes, they did. They were taught obedience. It is good to obey God. It is bad to disobey God. They were taught that they were made very good. God created man and and and woman and stepped back and said it is very good. God instilled into them that existence and obedience are good things. He instilled into them that eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is a bad thing. If existence is the ultimate good, what's the ultimate evil? To lose existence. And he said if you eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, you will lose your life. bad to put it very you know yes good and bad they exist in the garden they understand it what is the original sin too often we say the original sin was just they ate the fruit they weren't supposed to eat really do we think that little of God that he would allow all of humanity damnation damnation over an apple or a pomegranate That's not the sin. The sin is a multi-layered disobedience to God. Also, in this story of Adam and Eve, who takes the fruit off the tree? Eve does. Eve takes the fruit. Eve sees that it's good to eat. Eve picks it. Eve bites it. Eve gives it to Adam. Adam eats it. The dragon gets punished, thrown on his belly, and all of them get thrown out the garden.

But why do we never refer it? We never refer scriptures, the church fathers, the tradition of the church. We never refer to the sin of Eve. What is it called? We heard it in the second reading. Paul calls it when he writes to Romans, the sin of Adam.

All throughout our liturgy, it's the sin of Adam. All throughout the church fathers, it's the sin of Adam. All throughout the New Testament, it's the sin of Adam. Why do we call it the sin of Adam? Of Eve's the one who plucks the fruit. All right, gentlemen. I'm not a married man, but most of you are. So, let me ask this question. If you're standing in a garden and an alligator is standing on his hind feet and speaking plain English, walks up to your wife and starts trying to tell her that God's a liar, what do you do? You shoot him in the face. You punch him. You throw him on the ground. You whisk your wife away to safety. And the two of you run because there's an alligator walking on his hind feet. I don't know about you, but you see a terrible being like that and my only thought is we're going to die. Where is Adam? Where is Adam? While this ancient nahash is speaking to his wife, the scripture says, we read it as with her. The Hebrew says next to her, shouldertosh shoulder.

He's just standing there doing nothing silent. He's failed. And there was disobedience there because earlier in Genesis, what did God command Adam? Speaking to Adam, not Adam and Eve, but speaking to Adam, he commanded Adam,

take all of creation,

take care of it, and keep it. What does it mean to keep something? If you give me a bar of gold, how do I keep my bar of gold? I buy a safe. I bolt the safe to the ground. I put the gold in the safe. I lock the combination lock. I hired an armed guard to stand in front of it and and and nobody's coming near it. I'm going to protect that thing because I don't want to lose it. God says to Adam, "All of this is yours. Be fertile and multiply. I give you everything to till it to and to keep it. I give you Eve, your helpmate, the one who will fulfill your nature. I give her to you as a gift. Keep her. Protect her. Keep her from harm. Then here comes this upright alligator calling God a liar to Eve's face, telling her to disobey God. And Adam's silent, just watching. He completely failed to be obedient to God, to keep safe what God had given him, to obey that God had told him to keep everything safe. It's disobedience.

But even more so, remember if you read Genesis, it says the Lord God introduced himself as the Lord God. When you read scripture, it doesn't come across when we say it out loud, but when you look at the page, when the word Lord, L O R D, is in all caps, it's the name of God that we don't speak. Y HWH, it's the name of God that we don't speak. God is what he is. Yahweh is his name, the Lord God. When the devil comes to Eve, what does the devil say? He only says Elohim. He only uses God's title, not God's name. God walked in communion. He walked in friendship. He walked in familiarity. He walked in intimacy with Adam and Eve. He walked with them by name. And the devil came and said, "Elohim, only God, no name." He makes God impersonal and he twists God's words into into a lie. He twists what was good and made it evil. My brothers and sisters, this story is not a children's story. It's a graphic detail of the condition that we find ourselves in. And it's an ancient lie that is repeated over and over and over again throughout the millennia down to us today. This story directly affects us. And to understand this story is to understand our sinful inclination. At the very least, how many times do we give in to the idea that we can't pray? We can't hear God, that God doesn't speak anymore, that God is distant, that God is other, that we will never be able to discern God's voice, to hear his voice, to see his face, to understand his will. How often I hear, "Oh, a prayer just doesn't come to me." That's obscene. It's obscene to say such a thing. God Almighty will stand on this altar. God Almighty will subject himself to being put in your hand and into your mouth. What do you mean you can't hear him? You can't see him. He's here. The scriptures are the living word of God. God didn't create you to be a servant that never saw the master. God created you to be his beloved child. And we listen to that lie. And it is a lie. It's a lie that we listen to and we internalize that we are not worthy to hear God.

God created us for that purpose to hear him and to be intimate with him.

How dare people say, "I'm just not one for meditation and contemplating God's voice." How dare people say that? Because all they're doing is not only believing the lie of the ancient serpent, but they're repeating it. By saying that, you are repeating the lie of the devil.

Gentlemen, you were made to be the spiritual leaders of your family. Why is it that women are the spiritual leaders in the world?

We men, we we fail.

You know, growing up, I remember very distinctly when I was before I had made my first communion, my dad didn't go to mass. It was just my mom and I. I remember growing up, my dad didn't lead the prayer before dinner. It was my mom.

I remember very distinctly when I was in seminary, my dad something clicked and I remember I remember it was it was an awkward and yet beautiful moment because something clicked in his head and he said, "Let's pray." And then he tried to lead a spontaneous prayer and it was awful. He was terrible at it, but he did it. He did it. Today, my my dad is the one that's always pushing the rest of my dad pushes me to pray when I don't want to pray and I'm a priest. You know that that's the way that a dad should act. But for how long for how long then do we allow our responsibility to keep our families to protect our families to lead our families? We allow that responsibility to go neglected because spirituality feels feminine.

Spirituality is the battle against the ancient serpent.

It is the great knight fighting against the dragon flying in the sky. There is the threat of the ancient Nahash in our faces lying to us and deceiving us. If Adam and Eve knew good from evil before the fall, then what did they learn when they ate the tree from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? They learned that they wanted to be arbitrators of the truth. They wanted to be the ones who defined truth because what was the lie that the devil told them? He said if you ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you will be like gods. Knowing right from wrong. The the ancient Hebrew tension of of to know is to control. You determine what is good. You determine what is evil. You determine what is truth. I am so tired of the phrase, well that's my truth. It's not yours or mine. It either is true or it is false. Truth is a dichotomy. This church building cannot both be here and not here depending on who you ask. It's right there. I'm standing on this marble. It's here. God either exists or he does not exist. Whether or not I believe in him has no effect on reality. I cannot change reality based on my mental well-being. I can't. We call it fantasy and we call it pretend. And we constantly we give into this lie. We constantly give into this temptation of the devil that God is somehow distant. That we somehow have become gods and and can control the truth. We give into this lie that that we can just be silent and and and on the sidelines and not fighting the fight against the ancient devil. It's awful.

And yet there's the promise and the good news behind all of it.

God made you and I for love's sake. God made you to love you. God made you to be in a relationship with you. You were created to hear God's voice. You were created to walk with God. You were created to be intimate with God. Not a hundred years from now in heaven today. You were created to pray and to hear God's voice in this very moment

if we but listen. We were created to be God's heroic saints throughout the world, saving souls and building a great kingdom of God if we but fight against sin. We were created not to be isolated. Look at Adam and Eve again. In that moment of sin, Eve is speaking to the devil alone. Adam's right next to her yet silent. Eve is isolated and Adam allows his wife to be isolated in that moment. And in her isolation, she sins. And the result of that sin is a deeper isolation as they're cast out of the garden. You were not made to be alone. You were not made to worship God alone. You were made to belong to this great and mystical body of Christ. We were made for something great. Why do we fall on our face and settle for mediocre?

We were made for heroic virtue and yet we settle for entertainment.

We're made to know God thoroughly, intimately, profoundly, and to be changed by him. Yet so often we try to change him and his church.

This is not a children's story. The ancient Nahash is still lying. And yet he's already been defeated. He's already been defeated. He's already been defeated. We just have to listen for God's voice and not give into the lie that it cannot be heard. We just have to have a little discipline and sit before him and contemplate his scripture. We just have to have a little bit of courage and seek to be free of our sin. We just have to come to the realization that my life is not about me. But I was given life for the sake of the kingdom. I'm not here for you. Sorry, that was backwards. I'm not here for me. I'm here for you. And you're not here for you. You're here for each other. You're here for the sake of the kingdom. What a great quest we have been given. God is indeed at work and he is shouting.