THE SAD STATE OF HUMAN NATURE

A SERMON FOR QUINQUAGESIMA SUNDAY

Last week we spoke about the temptation of Eve, and the series of mistakes she made in listening to the devil, then conversing with him, then believing him, and finally yielding to his suggestions.  She made these mistakes, and like us when we make mistakes, she also had to face the consequences of those mistakes.  She and Adam were banished from the Garden of Eden, they lost their innocence and their holiness, and were doomed to suffer and eventually die.  This is justice, and God, as we know, is infinitely just.  So it should come as no surprise that God punished Adam and Eve for their sin.  What we might perhaps not understand, is why today, we have to suffer because of the sin of our first parents; after all, we didn’t bite the apple, they did!  Why should we share in their punishment?

That, my friends, is just the way of things.  If the father of a family, let’s call him Fred, inherits lots of money and a beautiful house from a rich uncle, all is lovely for a while and the family enjoys the benefits of their inheritance.  Just as Adam and Eve enjoyed the beautiful Garden of Eve bestowed upon them by their loving Father in heaven.  But then Fred starts spending his money on sinful pastimes, he falls into temptation (like Adam and Eve did) and starts drinking to excess and gambles away all his good fortune.  This wasn’t the rich uncle’s fault for giving him this fortune in the first place, it was Fred’s fault for abusing the fortune.  Just as Adam and Eve lost their earthly paradise and many of the other gifts God had given them, the unfortunate Fred loses his home and all his money, and is reduced to poverty.  And here’s the unfortunate point, so do Fred’s children.  Yes, the sins of the father have consequences for his children, and this was no different for Adam and his descendants.

What exactly have we lost by Adam’s sin?  More perhaps than we think.  It’s interesting that God did not take away Adam’s free will, even though it was by his free will that Adam had made the choice to disobey God.  If God had removed his free will, man would have been reduced to the same level as the other animals, mere brutes, shuffling around and following our basic instincts.  Infinitely just, God may be, but he is also infinitely merciful, and spared us this indignity.  He had created man for a destiny in heaven, and he did not want to remove that possibility altogether.  Let’s not neglect to make our thanks to God for this great blessing.  Nevertheless, our free will was weakened.  Our tendencies to sin are far greater than they otherwise would have been.  Likewise our understanding—Adam’s understanding before his fall was far greater than even the most intelligent men of history.  He knew more without study than Plato or Aristotle managed to figure out even after years of constant education and thinking.  But after the fall, man’s intelligence was darkened, it became obscured.  “For now we see through a glass darkly.” Now we have to learn how to do everything all over again.  We buy a piece of furniture and we have to try to figure out those crazy diagrams how to put it together, or if we go on vacation to Turkey we have to learn at least a few words of Turkish even if it’s just so we can ask for a cup of coffee in the morning.  It doesn’t matter what we do or where we go, there’s always that learning curve we have to master before we can be comfortable.  We have Adam to thank for that, and again it’s just the sins of the father being visited on us, his children.

Our first parents were free from all suffering, and even from death.  Theologians have concluded that although they would not have lived in this world forever, they would simply have been taken up into heaven, body and soul, when God so willed.  It is believed by many that for this reason, the Blessed Virgin Mary did not die either.  She who was preserved from the stain of Adam’s sin at her conception should not be subject to the bodily corruption which resulted from that sin.  And of course, we know by our faith, that she was assumed body and soul into heaven.  The rest of us, however, are not so fortunate.  Are we tired this morning, not feeling well?  Or maybe we have a headache or our arthritis is bothering us?  Worse yet, are we worrying about what ill health may eventually befall us as we get older?  Again, this was not something we would have had to be anxious about if we hadn’t inherited the sin of Adam.

On no account must we blame God for these consequences, any more than Fred’s children should have blamed their rich uncle for leaving his riches to their father in the first place.  It was actually all Fred’s fault, just as the actual guilt of original sin rests entirely on the shoulders of Adam and Eve.  We must simply accept what is and deal with it accordingly.  We must suffer and die, we must learn how to put that cabinet together, or look up what the Turkish word for coffee is. 

Above all, we must fight temptation.  Whether Adam and Eve are in heaven today is something we’ll not find out until we get there ourselves.  But first we have to get there!  And that means, not making the same mistakes.  After the fall, Adam and Eve were like us, subject to all the dark tendencies of our fallen human nature.  And we, like them, must fight those same tendencies, even though it’s not our own fault we’re stuck with them.  Whether we’re to blame for our own temptations just isn’t the point, it’s how we deal with them that counts.  We have to remember they’re not just temptations from the devil.  More important yet, they’re tests permitted by God.  Tests we have to pass and not fail.  These tests are the very purpose of our existence and are permitted by God for that reason.  Adam and Eve had only one test, which they failed.  We on the other hand are given multiple tests, we’re tempted every day—we hear those diabolic words in our ear all the time, “Do this, or do that, and you’ll become as gods…”  Don’t listen to the devil, just remind yourself that God is giving you another test, one that you had better pass.  Say the powerful prayer, even as you mouth the words, “Get thee behind me Satan!” and thank God for the test.  For it’s only by passing our tests that we’ll merit happiness in the life everlasting.