Genesis 3:4-7
Matthew 4:1-11

“Are you ready for the Journey “

Do you remember being a kid and being told not to touch something or worse not to eat something? And sometimes it’s sitting there on the counter, in front of your eyes, like the Halloween candy for example. To me, that was the neighbors’ cherries. Man, they looked delicious, shining bright red on those trees that are one jump away; they were much much more delicious than the ones we had in our fridge. As kids, my brother, cousin and I didn’t understand boundaries, so we kept “losing” the ball into our neighbors’ orchard, so we can go and “find” it, up on the tree. My parents were very embarrassed and never understood why we went after the neighbors’ trees when they bought us all the fruits we wanted. They probably needed a refresher about temptation form the first book in the Bible, and the very first story of humans’ interaction with God: Adam and Eve eating from the very tree which God had asked them not to eat from.

And then, there is the second story, where temptation takes a much more evident form. Jesus had embarked on a mentally, spiritually and emotionally exhausting journey, one of choosing a direction for his life. He is weighed down and hungry, it’s been days, even weeks since he has eaten. And then in his weakness, he is asked to make choices.

Veronica and I like to guess why two readings are chosen to be put together for a certain Sunday. And my guess for this week is the theme of sin and temptation. In Matthew, Temptation is the doorway to sin and sin is alienation from God’s purposes. So, while Jesus surmounted temptation and kept focused on God’s will, Adam and Eve failed to resist temptation and wanted to live according to their own purposes rather than God’s and therefore fell into the state of sin, which made them move further away from God. That’s the traditional interpretation.

But today I want to look at the texts differently. I want to look at them both as journeys undertaken by humans who are faced by choices. Two stories of choices and vulnerability. Two stories of journeying with, towards or away from God.

We find in Genesis 3 the narrative of the first journey ever taken by humans in their relationship with God. I want us to notice that the word sin is absent in the whole story. So, if we forget for a moment the negative connotation that’s often associated with it; namely Adam and Eve’s disobedience to God, we notice that it was also the journey of them becoming independent and self-aware, and discovering that they have the freedom of choice.

Dr. William P. Brown Old Testament professor in Columbia Seminary calls this story “becoming human,” because to be human is to undertake a journey of transformation, even if, in that case, it was a journey of alienation from God, and of leaving the literal paradise.

On the other hand, in the opposite of paradise, in the desert, we find Jesus also on a journey of transformation. Anyone has been to a desert? It is a harsh environment; extremely hot in the day and extremely cold at night. It is quiet, lonely and brutal. Yet, that place of death is also a place for deep reflections on spiritual realities, and it is where most of the intense experiences of God take place.

We read in the Bible about many deserts and wildernesses: the desert of Sinai in Egypt, the Judean wilderness, and the Arabian Desert between Judah and Babylon. And in each, there is a story about a journey: the Israelites wandered in the desert for 40 years, Moses led God’s people out of the desert, and then John the baptizer lived and ministered in the desert and that is exactly where Jesus begins his life’s vocation.

And that’s what Lent is all about. It is about visiting our spiritual desert. Fasting physically and/or spiritually invite us to turn our hearts from the material towards the spiritual. As the lushness of the material world is stripped from our senses by the barrenness of a desert, we might turn our hearts toward God and seek to discover what is truly important in our lives. There is a saying: “when there is nothing left but God, that’s when you realize that God is all you need.”

Friends, as we enter the season of Lent, we may or may not fast, regardless, we are invited to transform our hearts. And that is not about doing good things; one can do the right thing without truly seeking God, but it is about honest self-search and embarking on a journey towards God. And NO, we are not expected to make the choices Jesus made, or to be able to fight all and any temptation that might come our way, but we are invited to admire the weakness of Jesus and his place of physical and spiritual desert, as a place of hope. Even though our spiritual life has become as dry as a desert, that can be the occasion for deep spiritual renewal and the very place where God finally finds us and invites us to walk with God on a journey of renewal.

We are also invited to look at the story of “the fall” as a story of grace instead. For, though Adam and Eve chose to be away from God, God didn’t bring death on them as initially warned but expelled them from paradise so they can live with full authenticity, the journeys they chose for themselves.

The two texts put together invite us to embrace our humanity with its weaknesses, to live it authentically and fully and to make the choices that make us who we are. But they also challenge us to transform who we are into who we can be when we walk our journeys with God.

A journey with God also means a journey towards God, and that cannot ignore God’s flawed people like Adam, Eve, and ourselves. The Lenten experience is to live our humanness, including dealing with temptations and self-examination, but through that, to remember whose we are. It is a journey that starts with hope and that ends with grace.

May we come to this Lenten season of transformation asking for renewed and honest hearts, and may we trust that God’s Spirit surrounds us on our journey. Amen.