"ReFraming" March 13, 2011

Genesis 2:15-17 & 3:1-8
Matthew 4:1-11
Among my father-in-law's treasures were a series of very fine artwork that he bought at art dealers in the 1960s. One in particular was a beautiful poster. But having acquired these in the 1960s, it had a polished aluminum frame, and a chartreuse mat. Having been around for some time, the glass also had a small crack. So I decided to reframe the piece. As I turned it over and began to unscrew the highly polished metal pieces, everything was under tension, and the frame sort of exploded. Surprisingly, underneath that chartreuse mat, what I thought was a poster had a fraction written in the bottom left corner, and a signature in the bottom right. It was only in reframing that we discovered it was not a poster but an original print. However, in order to show the print number and signature, the reframing had to be much larger and more ornate.

The passages for this morning are each works of art. Beautifully crafted stories, their prominence in the Church affirmed by each being among the first stories in the Old Testament and New Testament. While this could identify that these took place historically, during the time Adam and Eve were in the Garden, and when Jesus was in the Wilderness following his Baptism, in so far as we know of no scribe who accompanied each, there is probably another reason why these two stories have such prominence.

For purposes of reframing, to witness a greater sense of truth than we may have previously known, our reading of Genesis this morning is that this is not about historic Creation. This is not about the origins of Sin, or the origin of Death, or the origin of Sex, or even about how humanity came to be of two sexes, or definition of the Fall. And the selection from Matthew, is not about Miracles, not about Jesus ability to change stones into bread, or to take a leap of faith, or his willingness to accept the role of being Messiah. All of those images have been shown previously.

Instead, looking at the larger picture, In Genesis 1 God formed all of Creation in a completeness. In Chapters 2 and 3, the question is about what Thornton Wilder described as The 8th Day of Creation, the Destiny of Humanity IN the Creation of God. This is not a world of our making, not a Doxology of all things belong to God, but rather a reflection on who we choose to be, how we choose to live since this is God's creation.

There are explicit descriptions about Context, where the Garden is located, what is in the garden, how the garden functions. Humanity is given three defining purposes by God, as such these define who we are and also our relationship with God. Humanity is given VOCATION, not a VACATION trip to Florida in March, but VOCATION an Identity based on our responsibility, we are to be Gardeners caring for Creation. We are given PERMISSION, “you can do anything, eat anything, anything at all in the garden.” We are also given PROHIBITION, there is one tree, at the center of the Garden, the tree of knowledge, that according to God we cannot eat from. VOCATION, PERMISSION and PROHIBITION. There is probably something telling about humanity, that what we have traditionally lifted up out of Genesis is PROHIBITION only. Together, these three identify that the Garden, our role in life, our abilities are all defined by our relationship to God, our trust. God is the Creator of the Garden, we are in the image of God, so we too are Gardeners; God has given us absolute freedom, Permission to do anything and go anywhere; Out of trust and Authority, relationship with God we are asked to not do one thing. This is a story of living in COVENANT. Whether we choose to TRUST what we do not know to God, or whether we believe we must KNOW trusting Knowledge is power.

The “Temptation of Jesus” confronts every circumstance of Israel in the wilderness. They were hungry and thirsty and complained against God at Massah and Meribah. They wanted miracles at their command. And generations later in the time of Jesus when Israel was taken over by the Greeks and Romans, in order to be elected to office, in order to be an officer in the military, for any role of leadership, you had to swear an oath to the Greek and Roman Gods, to Idol Worship. All three of these temptations Jesus stands against. Rather than TEMPTATION, this passage is the Good News that the Messiah remained faithful when confronted with each. There will probably never come an occasion where we will be so starving as to want to change stones to bread. Or when we will be tempted to leap off the pinnacle of a Temple. The underlying theme of this is that every temptation that could be there for us, especially the temptation of whether to Trust God above all else, Jesus already met.

This morning as we each entered the sanctuary, we were greeted with the shocking news that Jean, a vibrant woman involved in every different part of the life of this community, had suddenly, without warning taken ill and died. Our immediate creaturely, mortal reaction, is grief and loss; but we need to reframe this in faith. Jean lived her life caring for others, doing for others, living in faith. We can be consumed by our sorrow, or like Jean we can trust where our knowledge and understanding fail, that she is with God. At every death, there seems a temptation to find out why. All that science can tell us is knowledge of the how, which does not address that after 49 years of marriage a wife is gone; after drying the tears of third graders and Nursery school parents, she is gone. There is a phrase from a prayer, I choose to use at every memorial: As God never lost her by her living her life among us, so we have not lost her by her return to be with God.