Look back
by Bishop Richard Henning

First Reading: Genesis 2:7-9, 3:1-7
Responsorial: Psalm 51:3-4, 5-6, 12-13, 17
Second Reading: Romans 5:12-19
Gospel Passage: Matthew 4:1-11

In some ways, the readings today take us to the beginning of the story. In Genesis we are at the beginning of creation and in the passage from Matthew we are the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. But it is the passage from Romans that reveals that we are not so much going back to the beginning as looking back into our past. We are looking back in order to understand and grow.
 
The Genesis passage, as part of the creation account, presents contemporary Americans with great difficulty. Because of the particularity of our culture, many Americans get lost in the “creationism” debate. In that debate, the wrong questions are asked of the biblical text – people imagine it to be either a true or flawed work of “earth science.” Thus they find themselves choosing between fundamentalism and skepticism. Such readings of Genesis also tend to see the work as primitive in its understanding of the world.
 
And yet such debates draw us away from the insight and sophistication of the narrative. It is not a book for use in science class, it is a book that gives insight into the human condition and nature of God. Genesis does have something to say about creation – namely that it is good. We might wish to recall that this is not necessarily the conclusion we might draw from the evidence. In a world of violence, death, and uncertainty, we might conclude that creation is at best, mixed - at worst, deeply flawed. And yet the text is clear that creation is good. It is the outpouring of a God of life and love. It is born in communion and the utterly unselfish outpouring of God’s inner life.
 
If creation is now flawed, it is so not because the Creator intended it to be so, or failed to make it whole. It is flawed because human beings have chosen to abuse the authentic freedom given to us by a loving Creator. The passage we hear today – parable-like in its simplicity – touches on this profound mystery of the human temptation to forget the Creator and pretend at self-sufficiency. Here we see the original tragedy of human foolishness. God has given the man and the woman all that they might want – and still they want more. All the serpent needs to do is touch lightly on their vanity, and the man and woman will believe a forked tongued creature over their Creator. The knowledge they seek is more than intellectual, it is experiential. Above all, theirs is a failure of trust.
 
The stories of Genesis come to us in their final form not from prehistory, but from the time of the Babylonian Exile. God’s people were struggling to understand their own long history of foolish infidelity and their then desolate circumstances. This “look back” to the beginning of the story served to give insight and hope to a people who struggled to see past the dust and the struggle.
 
When Paul wrote to the Christians at Rome, he addressed a community that he did not evangelize and had never visited. As a result, this lengthy letter give something of a summary of Paul’s evangelical message. In outlining his understanding of the Christ event, Paul used typical Jewish methods of interpreting the scriptures such as midrash and typology. The typology in this passage links Adam and Jesus – not so much in their similarity as in their differences. Paul was looking back to the scriptures seeking insight about the human condition. Adam was not the only foolish one. That original tragedy had found an echo in every generation as human beings – including God’s Chosen People – failed to place their trust in God. The grace of God consists in the gift of the Son Who finally lives that loving trust lacking in Adam and all his previous descendants.
 
The passage from Matthew has a similar message about the trust and fidelity of Jesus, but it looks back to another tragedy of human failure. This account of the temptation of Jesus takes place early on in His ministry. And notice that it takes place in the desert. It is a recasting of the Sinai experience. After the miraculous liberation of the people from Egypt, they had as much reason as Adam and Eve to praise – and trust – God. And yet almost immediately they pined for their old life in slavery. They murmured and questioned. They would make their own gods rather than live trusting in Divine providence. The typology in Matthew is obvious as Jesus maintains absolute fidelity as tempter plies his trade. The first temptation echoes the gift of the manna. In the second temptation, Jesus refuses to “test” God as the Israelites had done at Massah in the desert. And in the third temptation – on a mountain – we see Jesus fulfill the law that had been given on another mountain. He remains faithful.
 
Psalm 51 was associated with David’s repentance after the Bathsheba debacle. For us today, it provides a necessary opportunity to “look back” on our own lives and recognize our failures to trust, our infidelities to God, and our temptation to pursue our own will over and against that of the Living God. If we are honest, the picture of our foolishness is just as damning as that of the man and the woman in Genesis. For all the intervening centuries, we have not really grown any wiser. Nevertheless, our repentance is not despair. It begins in our growing awareness of God’s own fidelity. We look to Jesus and see a moment of re-creation. He offers us the opportunity to look back upon His gift and find hope of transformation and redemption.