Word to the Wise
Saturday, February 11, 2017 - Saturday in the 5th Week in Ordinary Time
[Gen 3:9-24 and Mark 8:1-10]The Lord God called to Adam and asked him, "Where are you" He answered, "I heard you in the garden; but I was afraid, because I was naked, so I hid myself." Then he [God] asked, "Who told you that you were naked? You have eaten, then, from the tree of which I had forbidden you to eat!" The man replied, "The woman whom you put here with me - she gave me fruit from the tree, and so I ate it." The Lord God then asked the woman, "Why did you do such a thing?" The woman answered, "The serpent tricked me into it, so I ate it." [Genesis]
Passing the buck and pointing the finger and the blame game are as old as Adam and Eve! And so are the consequences. Everybody loses, including the serpent! Notice that one of the losses that Adam and Eve undergo is the loss of the "tree of life," which would have guaranteed they would live forever. Instead they chose to eat the one thing they were told they couldn't have. This remains one of the hardest things to understand about human nature: why, in the midst of all the good things God has given us, do we choose to assert our independence on one thing and thereby lose everything?
Of course there are a number of "consequences" in the list that are still with us. Eden is over. Humans have to work for a living. Child birth is still a dangerous proposition in spite of all the medical advances. St. Augustine decided to call the act of disobedience and its consequences as "original sin." There's nothing "original" about it anymore now. It's with us and we have to work at avoiding destroying what's left because the "seven deadly sins" are all alive and well in human nature and require prayer and integrity to battle them. We still have God's commands with us and we still have serpents to tempt us and we still have consequences when we "fall." God tried to start all over with Noah, but it looks like we're still human. Thank God that God is merciful! AMEN