Reading: Genesis 2:7-9; 3:1-7. The children had a question. They knew that creation was a wondrous thing and that God had called it good. But if everything in the world is so great, why are there things like broccoli and Brussels sprouts and homework?

The old woman told them this story.

In the garden there was a trickster named Snake. This Snake was the shrewdest of all the creatures. One day the woman was walking when she happened to encounter Snake. “Do you mind if I ask you a question?” the trickster hissed. And before she could answer yes or no, he continued, “Why did God put you in such a beautiful garden and then tell you not to eat fruit from any of the trees?”

“Oh, we can eat from any of the trees but one, the one that stands in the middle of the garden. If we take a bite of that fruit, or even touch it for that matter, we will die.”

A slow serpentine smile crept across Snake’s face, “You won’t die. God was just afraid that if you ate from that tree you would be like gods yourself, knowing good from evil and making your own decisions. Go on, try it.”

Well she ate, and her husband ate, and immediately she knew that everything was different. It was something in the way her husband looked at her. For the very first time she felt that she should cover herself; she felt shamed by the way he leered at her. In response to her glances, he began to cover himself, too. She was just looking at him, and he began to cover his nakedness. Naked! Her husband was nude, and she had never even noticed before. You would think a person might immediately observe something as important as being naked. Having no experience of making clothes, the two chose fig leaves from which to make aprons. As soon as they put the aprons on, she knew they had made the wrong choice. The fig leaves were rough and uncomfortable. Then, shamefaced and scratching, they went into hiding.

When God came walking through the garden in the cool of the evening and called for them, they were afraid to answer. Before they answered, God knew what was wrong. Her husband blamed her, and she blamed Snake. They all felt that God was at least a little responsible for putting them all there.

Snake got off easy, it seemed to her. All he had to do was crawl on his belly and watch so that neither she nor her children crushed his head. Now her husband would farm, and the earth would not be as cooperative as before. But she would come to know the pain of birth and the even greater pain of a child’s leaving.

Now they had to make their own decisions, because now they knew good from evil. And they would never be able to return to the comfort and security of the garden again.

But, she told the children, before we left God came, bringing us something for our new life. As your mothers make you clothes as you face the excitement and terror of starting school, the Creator of the universe made garments for us. They were soft and warm (unlike our fig leaf aprons) and were always reminders of the comfort we had known in the garden.

(Source: Storyteller’s Companion to the Bible)

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This Sunday first reading presents the most dramatic scenario of Satan’s temptation and accusation towards the fall of Adam and Eve. In the Garden of Eden, Satan, under the image of a Serpent, accosted Eve with an ingenuous-sounding question: “Did God really tell you not to eat from any of the trees in the garden?” (Gen. 3:1).

We notice that Satan used the phrase “any of the trees,” while God said directly to Adam and Eve of “this tree.” This was a shrewd trick of Satan. On the surface, his question sounded silly. But it involved an obvious distortion. If Satan used the phrase of “this particular tree,” Eve would immediately accede to him about the absolute fact of God’s rigorous instruction. But when he used the phrase of “any of the trees,” Satan caused Eve to respond to him the inaccuracy of his words. Eve said to the devil, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; it is only about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden that God said, ‘You shall not eat it or even touch it, lest you die’” (Gen. 3:2-3). In responding this to the devil, Eve was inadvertently taken up with the severity of God’s rules and prohibitions.

God had given Adam and Eve the freedom to utilize the garden, with one exception. Only one tree of life and of the knowledge of good and bad was placed off limits to Adam and Eve, while the rest were available to their full enjoyment. Yet Satan asked, “Did God really tell you not to eat from any of the trees?” Here, we see the shrewdness of the devil. He wanted to make a presumable suggestion to Eve that so long as God placed one limit on human freedom, he had taken away freedom all in all. The devil’s question was more than a question. It was an accusation against the kindness and equity of God.

Look at the way children’s response to prohibitions. If they ask you (parents) permission to do ten things and for the first nine you say yes to them, but on the tenth you say no, they would complain to you or tell his friends that you never let them do anything.

And so, Satan’s question was a mealy-mouthed assault on the integrity and rectitude of God. When Eve corrected his accusation and declared that only one tree was out of bounds with the divine warning of death, Satan boldly asserted, “You certainly will not die! No, God knows well that the moment you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods who know what is good and what is bad” (Gen. 3:4-5).

“You will not die,” the serpent declared a clear contradiction of what God said. By doing this, he accused God of lying. “You will not die. God says you will die, but I say you will not.” His temptation was evidently a lie. But the issue to Eve at that time was that who was telling the truth here.

Not only did Satan accuse God of lying, but he provided Eve with a reason why God lied to her. Therefore, Eve was confused by both divine and satanic words. The devil accused God of being a jealous God. God did not want Adam and Eve’s eyes to be opened. He wanted to keep his level of knowledge to himself. He did not want to share his deity. He was afraid that the fruit of the tree would make Adam and Eve divine. Therefore, God’s prohibition seemed to be both unfair and selfish.

As a result, Satan suggested that Adam and Eve had a right to the tree. God’s rules seemed to be unfair and accordingly needed to be corrected. Possessing self-will and self-determination, both Adam and Eve thought they could do whatever they felt please, even if it was not pleasing to God.

This type of temptation did not cease in the Garden of Eden. The devil continues to use the same strategy of enticement to tuck into the human mind every day. Every time we sin, we sin because we want to do what we want to do rather than what God wants us to do. It is because deep within our hearts, we harbor the deceitful thought that God’s laws are rigorous and unfair.

Rev. Linh N. Nguyen