To Be Like God (3.1.20)

(What Does It Mean) To Be Like God
Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7 and Matthew 4:1-11
March 1, 2020
Lent 1A
Rev. Elizabeth Mangham Lott
St. Charles Ave. Baptist Church

Some of you have heard me fondly recall the day I spent with Gordon Cosby many years ago in D.C. A small group of us toured the community sites that make up Church of the Savior—every group worshiping, studying, and gathering for community at their place of direct service and ministry in a neighborhood. We saw a dream come to life as we toured each space and listened to Gordon talk about his vision for what church is meant to be. Late in the day, I mentioned becoming disillusioned by church as I had always known it, and he replied, “Good! That means you’ve been living under an illusion, and now you’re not. That’s when the real work begins because you can see things as they really are.” 

This is our work during the season of Lent. Well, let’s be honest, this is work we do across the decades of our lives, if we’re fortunate enough to live that long. We fall under the comforting haze of illusion and then wake up again. And again. And again. The real work begins when we see things as they really are. These weeks of Lent invite us to the annual practice of letting something go or taking something on. We prune our habits and commitments not for self-flagellation but for releasing what prevents us from being our truest, fullest selves. We take on a new practice not for our performance and perfection to be graded but to discover ways that make us come alive. We have set out to see things as they really are, and that includes our lives.

In the pair of texts before us this morning, we listen in on conversations with a trickster serpent and the devil. In both cases, the ultimate question is about who the people in the conversations are truly called to be. Who are the woman and man called to be? Who is Jesus called to be? Calling is about identity and way of being in the world, and the options laid out before both the pair in the garden and Jesus in the wilderness are tempting misdirections that take them farther away from the truth of who they are. 

Take the deal and let the angels save you, accept the glory and praise of human power, provide for yourself with the hard work of your own two hands without a dose of gratitude for the miracle that is a garden, eat the fruit and become your own god. I know I’m not the only over-achiever in this room, I’m just the loudest one. I’d like to say I’m in recovery from my own ways of perfectionism and people-pleasing, but I think I’m merely waking up to those traits in myself rather than fully releasing them quite yet. The way ancient text portrays the garden and wilderness conversations are almost cartoonish which make the choice of the protagonists seem rather easy as we hear their stories. Truly, at what point in our lives are we faced with a known devil or a speaking snake? Assuming we didn’t declare ourselves to have gone mad, I think it’s safe to say almost every person here would run screaming from such ridiculous propositions rather than engaging in hearty, theological debate.

But that’s not how life is, and the great writers of scripture knew that just as well as we do. What are the temptations in these stories? Self-preservation, hoarding power, believing we can provide for all of our individual needs without help, cutting out the need for the divine as though mere knowledge is the only thing separating us from Ultimate Source. And the thread connecting all of those is total disconnection from community and creation.

David Lose writes, “It is the temptation to be self-sufficient, to establish their identity on their own, that seduces the first humans. Identity is again the focus of the Tempter in the scene of Jesus' temptation. ‘If you are the Son of God,’ Satan begins…Hence the core of the temptation: ‘Wouldn't it be better to know for certain? Turn stone to bread, jump from the Temple, worship me...and you will never know doubt again…You will be sufficient on your own.’” Friends, if Jesus himself couldn’t live out his Way alone, then surely neither can we. “[T]o be human,” Lose continues, “is to accept that we are, finally, created for relationship with God and with each other. Perhaps the goal of the life of faith isn't to escape limitation but to discover God amid our needs.”

The stories of Genesis begin with the Lord God placing the man in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. After the human ones run away, hiding, experiencing shame for the first time, covering their naked selves, the Lord God banishes the humans from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which they had been taken. 

Let’s remember we’re tenderly holding poetry and metaphor and parable and guiding story. Do you hear the beauty of creation paired with the beauty of consequence? The human ones were made for each other, made to be in constant communion with God, made to care for the earth and love it. They reached beyond that arrangement, taking something forbidden in hopes of gaining more knowledge that would expand their awareness and capacity. And the consequence of their actions return them to that first calling to be connection with one another, to care for the earth, and to feel their deep relationship to the dusty soil itself.

What does it mean to be like God? This question fascinates the woman. It’s not enough to simply bask in the mysterious one-ness of the thing. No, she needs to comprehend it and grasp it and hold it in her hands. We hear her story and recognize that the thing she misses is that she isn’t lacking anything. She already is like God. The first poem of creation tells us:

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

The original blessing pairs with the consequences once the two are sent out from the garden. Their design is the same. Their work is the same. Their calling is the same. But now they have a struggle in their story to trust which story is the one to live by. Is the great story of God the one that is theirs? Is being made in the image of God enough? Is living out a shared life in love and peace with neighbor and earth enough? Will they always a struggle to find the catch? To spot the plot twist? To control the way the story ends?

Jesus must have been truly tempted by these opportunities to consider the breadth and depth of his capabilities. Could his movement give him fame and political dominance? Would he be considered a “success” if he led a dying movement? Could he provide for all of his own needs without any help from others? Could he do whatever he wanted and allow the very powers of heaven to save him from foolish actions? Is that what it meant for Jesus to be like God?

When Jesus is tempted by these thoughts, he calls out to Deuteronomy 6 and 8. The temptation really isn’t the point of the scene; it’s what he calls on to remind him the path he’s called to walk. Are you tempted to think you are utterly self-sufficient? Deuteronomy 6:10-12 reminds: 

When the Lord your God brings you into the land he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you—a land with large, flourishing cities you did not build, houses filled with all kinds of good things you did not provide, wells you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant—then when you eat and are satisfied, be careful that you do not forget the Lord, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

Are you tempted to think you are the center of your own story, making your way in the world by yourself, holding those bootstraps tightly in your hands at all times? Deuteronomy 8:6-9a reminds:

Observe the commands of the Lord your God, walking in obedience to him and revering him. For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land—a land with brooks, streams, and deep springs gushing out into the valleys and hills; a land with wheat and barley, vines and fig trees, pomegranates, olive oil and honey; a land where bread will not be scarce and you will lack nothing…

What does it mean to be like God? To be made in the image of God? To be on the path and doing the work of God? We will have to let go of some things if we hope to find out. Let go of illusions, of our own desperate grip on power, let go of that stiff upper lip and dogged determination to do life alone. We will need to take on some things, too. If our texts today are guides toward that, we need to take on a relationship to the earth that is caring and loving, respectful and compassionate. We will need to take on a deep appreciation for our need for one another; sharing in a life together and moving through this world as a people. We will need to take on a study of sacred text that shapes what the steps of our lives will be. We will need to take on an awareness and gratitude that God goes before us, provides for us, sustains us, and sticks with us. Not a moment of this life we are living is mine alone or yours alone. This life is about we and us.

Embrace the invitation of Lent to consider all of these things. You are invited to release the illusion that you can do this life alone. You are invited to simply be rather than hurriedly do. You are invited into the slow and steady work of God. You are invited into the love and laughter and tears and silence of community. You are invited to dig your hands into the earth and find yourself in it as you turn the soil, plant a seed, weed a garden, watch the small reptiles, listen to the birdsong. You are invited to discover just how big and wide and high and deep the love of God is and that the love of God is in you, and in your neighbor, and in the earth. You are invited to the feasting table; never set for one and at which there is always room for more folks than we can imagine. At the feasting table of God, there is always enough food and always enough drink. Never scarcity, only abundance. You are invited. You are not alone here, and it turns out that is the whole point.