The Fall
1992 (Year C), 25 October / All Saints
St Peter de Beauvoir Town
In the beginning, so the story goes, God created heaven and earth. He created all that is, and when he looked at it he saw that it was all very good. He made a garden, that too was good. He made people and they were good. And God being God, maker of all things, made a tree. But now we get something is very interesting indeed, for the tree, if you ate its fruit, let you know the difference between good and evil. The interesting thing is, if we were all very clever and played with words is, whether this means that God created evil. Maybe you have to think that out for yourselves.
At any rate things are not now as good as they might have been for God Said that it’s not good for Adam to be alone, he needed a suitable helper. Now, I don’t want to offend women but here is a tremendous truth. An individual – it may be a man or it may be a woman – is not complete on their own. ‘Be fruitful, multiply’, is God’s command. We do his will when we obey this command. God wills that we live with one another in community. We are meant to live with and for each other.
The trouble is that Adam and Eve didn’t and we still don’t. We might live with others in the same house, in the same flats or street. Very seldom do we live for them.
The truth of all this is shown clearly in the mythical story we’ve just heard read. Adam and Eve were given a choice – to obey the law of God, or to live for themselves. They were free to make that choice – to eat or not to eat the apple. What could’ve been simpler. They were given that freedom – to live for God or not and they chose to live for themselves.
Of course, when they were found out, they tried to claim they had no freedom.’ She told me to eat it,’ he said. ‘It was the serpent who tricked me,’ she said. The same excuse has been made throughout history. ‘We were under orders,’ said the Nazis, at their trials. His childhood made him act like he did. She couldn’t help herself. We are always trying to deny the freedom given us by God, because admitting that we are free to choose means that at some time we might be called to account for the times we’ve chosen wrongly.
And heaven knows it easy to choose wrongly. The same object can be used to the glory of God or it can be the vehicle for misery and evil. A well-known book of prayers has one prayer on a five pound note. The writer gives thanks to God for truly good things that the note has brought, flowers from a lover, medicine for the sick, food for the hungry. Yet it has also bought pornography, death dealing drugs, a weapon to kill.
God gives to this good creation a choice. You can either be on the side of the angels, or you can be on the other. We must decide to live for each other and for God or to live for ourselves in isolation. It’s not a decision given to us by some sadistic creator, watching with glee as his creation tears itself apart. It’s given by a loving father waiting patiently for his children to return.
The decision is made harder because on the surface it seems that my pleasure, my fulfilment is dependent on me, not on others. No argument can convince you that you should get up in the middle of the night to help someone who knocks on you door asking for help. No proof can be given to parents that it’s the right that they should continue caring for children when it brings them nothing but pain. It’s hard to convince ourselves that it’s right to put someone else’s need before our own. Yet it is experience that persuades that this is right, and as we reflect on this, then we see that our divine Creator does the same.
As luck would have it, we have this week celebrated those who in the past have made the choice and managed to choose the side of the angels. The Saints are those who through their lives pointed the way to and the ways of God.
And we, we now have in our turn to make the choice, for ourselves and with our communities, because there are decisions which can only be made together. We are encouraged to make the choice because one person made it long ago. He was foolish in the sight of the world. He gave up his home, his trade, he put other peoples need before his own. He forgave his enemies. By common expectation he had some forty years in hand when he spent it on a single throw – to buy a pearl of great price. He won our salvation and united us with God. AMEN