LENT 2020: First Sunday

• LENT 2020: First Sunday
• Sunday, March 1, 2020: First Sunday in Lent
  Genesis 2.15-17, 3.1-7; Psalm 32; Romans 5.12-19; Matthew 4.1-11

"Did you push us when we fell?"

Those are the words of David Bazan, in his song, "When We Fell." Bazan's spiritual struggles have resonated with doubters for twenty-five years, since he formed the band Pedro the Lion back in 1995.

Bazan continues: You knew what would happen And made us just the same Then you, my lord, can take the blame.

We've all had this thought before, right? It's not just Bazan and me, right?

Right?

But while I want to affirm our doubts, I think our anxiety over "The Fall" is misguided. As Walter Brueggemann has written, "No text in Genesis (or likely in the entire Bible) has been more used, interpreted, and misunderstood than this text."

Brueggeman steps back to look at the scriptures as a whole and observes that "this is an exceedingly marginal text." It is one voice among many in our so-called "Old Testament" discussing the human condition. And it's a minor voice at that. Nowhere in the Hebrew scriptures is there even a single reference to this text. The more dominant voice, found everywhere from Deuteronomy to the prophets, says that humans have not suffered some existential fall, but can in fact do what is right.

And while Paul does make one reference to it, some perspective is in order: Romans 5 is part of a broader argument he is making, to proclaim the good news (not to analyze the origins of sin and death), to a specific congregation (he says other things to other congregations), that is based on later theological developments.

It wasn't until Augustine's doctrine of "Original Sin" in the early fifth century, some 400 years after Jesus, that "The Fall" became a thing Christians believed.

Not only is that a rather late development, but it's a complete misreading of scripture! Just a few verses prior to this, we find a comic story of God trying and failing, and trying again and failing, trying and failing, again and again and again, to find a suitable mate for the Adam. And then the narrator says, "no sustainer beside him was found." Then, when God does finally figure things out, Adam delivers this comical line: "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh" (emphasis mine).

The early chapters of Genesis are all about God figuring things out. The author of Genesis paints a clear picture of this when God, out of frustration, destroys all of creation - with the exception of Noah. Even the "blameless" Noah turns out to be messed up, though. Then God shows remorse and promises not to do it again. But then, in the very next chapter after the flood, we find God frustrated yet again.

It's hard to imagine this God guilty of Bazan's charge: "You knew what would happen / And made us just the same." And so, while Bazan's conclusion ("Then you, my lord, can take the blame") might be correct, it is so for other reasons.

This is a God who has not anticipated how things might turn out, this is a God who is not in control, but this is a God who sticks with it, who doesn't give up, and who tries new things each time we (both we as humans, and we as humans and God together) fail.

This is a God, in other words, who is all in with us.

This is not Augustine's God who would condemn us from the very beginning. Augustine's God is not worthy of our worship. Augustine's God is not worthy of our time. Bazan, and many others, are right to reject that God. But, thanks be to God, for Augustine's God is not the God we find in scripture, not if we read it well.

And so I would tell Bazan that he should maybe write a new song, with this line: "Then you, Saint Augustine, can take the blame!"