As someone who enjoys reading Sacred Scripture, today’s reading from Genesis always fills me with a bit of dread. This isn’t because of the reading itself; the depiction of Eden is idyllic and tranquil, with its newly formed lands and tantalizing trees (and I say that as someone who’s not particularly enamored with the outdoors). No, that pit in my stomach is because I know what’s going to happen next: Humanity is going to mess it all up . . . less than a chapter later.
This reading is paired with today’s Gospel selection from Mark, where Jesus talks about what defiles a person. He explains it’s not what goes into someone that defiles them (“Thus he declared all foods clean”), but what comes out of them — that is, their actions and notions: “evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly.”
The story of Genesis is, in a lot ways, the story of how we can disobey God and fall prey to outside forces seeking to turn us away from our better selves. And I’m sure we can all think of outside forces that have (or could potentially) negatively influence us.
But I’d also argue it’s a story about how we’re perfectly capable of messing things up ourselves. I mean, Sacred Scripture says the snake was “the most cunning of all the wild animals that the LORD God had made” (Gen 3:1). But it’s not like Eve was exactly Sherlock Holmes in her reasoning and intellect here; I’m pretty sure that if she’d run up against (say) the sixth-most-cunning animal who had the same agenda, the results would’ve been the same. (As proof, I note that Eve — almost certainly no more clever than Adam — got him to go along with her . . . so I’m guessing that Adam could’ve succumbed to a ferret with an agenda.)
We see this in the daily world, as well. Sure, we know many stories of those who grew up surrounded by vice who have fallen into temptation or bad choices, bringing havoc to their own lives and those around them. But we’ve also heard many stories of those who grew up in good homes, with loving and supportive parents, who still managed to destroy their lives with poor decisions.
One cause of this is — of course — the influence of Satan, whose efforts were at the Garden and who still works among us today. But Jesus didn’t warn about Satan as much as he warned about our own proclivities toward sin. (Again, in the Garden, I note that Adam’s fall was only indirectly attributable to Satan; his bad decisions were his own.)
Today, I encourage you to reflect on the state of Eden as it was in today’s readings: created by God, new, pristine, good. Then, I’d like you to think of your own self and your own life in those same terms. Our lives, our nows and tomorrows, are pristine until we, through, our actions sully them. And we can’t even blame it on original sin; Adam and Eve didn’t have it and they succumbed, and Jesus (born without sin) was tempted mightily by Satan and held fast to the Father’s wishes.
Even if we falter or fall, God looks eagerly to us atoning for our sins, making Reconciliation one of the Sacraments. The fact that it is so difficult to maintain the “Eden” of our selves and our own lives also means that we should look not with judgment and condemnation at those who have fallen short. (We’ve all fallen short at some point.) Rather, we should look with love and kindness on those who do struggle and have struggled. And we should seek to help others as best we can, reflecting on the charity taught by Jesus to work together with God’s help to avoid defiling our lives.
Reading Eden, I can’t help but wince as I know what’s going to happen when I turn the page. In our own lives, we turn the pages of our own stories, filled with our own actions. Let’s all do what we can — ourselves and with God — to keep from doing things that would defile our own gardens.
Today’s readings: Gn 2:4B-9,15-17; Ps 104:1-2A,27-28,29BC-30; Mk 7:14-23
