A Tale of Two Trees

There were two trees in the Garden of Eden that are specifically mentioned in Genesis 2 - "The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil."  When God gives Adam instructions concerning trees He singles out one tree, "“You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”  

This brings up a great many questions? Why does God only draw Adam's attention to the prohibited tree and not the tree of life?  Do we assume that Adam knew about the tree of life?  What, in fact, would Adam have thought that life and death meant?  What if they had eaten of the tree of life before eating of the tree of knowledge?  Why hadn't they eaten of the tree of life?  Why did God create the tree if it was prohibited?  Why create the possibility for sin at all?

Let's consider the last question first.

We were created in God's image and given a certain kind of life.  When He created the animals they had the breath of life in them (Gen. 1.30)  Genesis 2 tells us that when man was created God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, animating a lump of earth He had formed to become a living creature.  The Jewish sages speak of two different kinds of souls.  In animals there is only the nephesh, that animating life of inclination, will and desire.  Humans have an additional component to the soul, the neshama, and this is the intellect and our ability to relate to God, to have an awareness of Him.  We alone of all creation have this ability. 

Creation in the image of God implies that we are like God doesn't it?  What is the temptation posed by the serpent?  "God knows that when you eat of (the tree of the knowledge of good and evil) your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”  The temptation is to be like God.  We are already "like God."  Is knowing the difference between good and evil what makes us not like God?  It would seem that life was what makes us different, we were dependent on Him for life and He was before we were, so isn't the real difference related to life?  

We are like God because He chose to carefully create us in His image in the way Isaiah talks about a potter or woodworker creating an idol in chapters 40 and 44 of his prophecy.   We are like God because He breathed life into us directly.  Our lives, unlike His, are contingent.  He is life, I AM.  Adam was told that his life was contingent, contingent on obedience to the command to not eat of that one tree.  To eat that tree was to die but death is clearly something more than physical since they did not die physically at the moment they ingested the fruit.  

To be like God includes the possibility of choices.  Of all the possible worlds God could have created, out of all the forms He could have chosen to create in His image, He chose this world and this form.  There were other choices He could have made that were not good weren't there?  Good is itself a comparative word and implies that there are some things that are not good.  God chose to create good things.  Adam had the possibility of choosing either good, obedience to God, believing God that if he ate something bad, death, would happen, and evil, disobedience to God.  God took the great gamble and gave us a choice because He created us in His image. Part of that is we were given great dignity, the dignity to choose.

When Moses gave his final speech to the people, the book we know as Deuteronomy, he ultimately poses the same possibility to the people.  "I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days.."  

Once the choice was made, the other choice, to eat of the tree of life, was forbidden.  It wasn't enough to prohibit it, we had already chosen disobedience.  Now it must be guarded against us.   Death involves the dying of the will, separation from God who no longer walked with Adam in the garden.  We could do no other than choose disobedience once we had first chosen.

We have a new tree of life, the cross, and in order to choose life, we must choose the via dolorosa, the way of suffering, the way of Jesus. The denial of self that Jesus calls us to is exactly what Adam and Eve chose not to do in the garden.  If it were not for the Holy Spirit, being born again, born from above, we cannot choose to deny ourselves.  Jesus, however, has made it possible for us to choose life and He is our life.  As Paul wrote, to live is Christ, to die is gain.  Now we can again be true image bearers, the possibilities are again limitless.

 

Call to Holy Lent 2014

When the Lord gave Moses the commands for the Passover feast and the Feast of Unleavened Bread, He included this commandment - "For seven days no leaven is to be found in your houses. If anyone eats what is leavened, that person will be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he is a sojourner or a native of the land." - Exodus 12.19

It is a serious penalty to be cut off from the congregation, especially when you consider that it is applies only to owning some yeast and only owning it on  a few days out the year.  That isn't the only prohibition on yeast though. The bread that was sacrificed on the altar in certain rituals also could contain no leaven.  What does God have against leaven and what in the world does it have to do with Lent?

There are many answers to the question of why leaven is prohibited, the Jewish sages and rabbis have proposed a great many reasons and I want to give you a couple of them and one suggestion of my own as we consider what Lent means and how we keep a holy Lent.

According to Scripture, the eating of unleavened bread commemorates the original Exodus from Egypt. Since there wasn't enough time for the dough to rise when the Jews fled, the LORD memorialized the event with the commandment to eat only unleavened bread for seven days: "Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, the bread of affliction, for you came out of the land of Egypt in haste -- that all the days of your life you may remember the day when you came out of the land of Egypt" (Deut. 16:3).

One of the greatest rabbinic teachers, Moses Maimonides, aka the Rambam (12^th century rabbi in Morocco and Egypt), suggested that yeast was forbidden as a burnt sacrifice because it was the sacrifice of the common man to the pagan gods of the era.  A true sacrifice in God’s estimation, was that which was rejected by the false gods. 

Other suggestions have included that leaven is considered a corrupting influence, a hidden uncleanness that manipulates purer elements. Like the influence of a lump of leaven in a batch of dough, "spiritual" leaven functions as an evil impulse within us that corrupts and "sours" our soul.  This "yeast in the soul" is essentially pride that manifests itself in idolatrous desires and lusts.

Some teachers have linked yeast with what the Jewish people call the yetzer hara or the evil inclination within us that tempts us to follow "too much the devices and desires of our own hearts" as the confession in our Daily Office of Morning Prayer says.  They see leaven as a symbol of death and decay.  The "rise of dough" is only possible by means of the natural processes of decay. In other words, were it not for the curse of death (i.e., the Fall of Adam and Eve), there could be no leavened bread. When the leaven is purged from Jewish homes, they are sanctifying themselves by removing corrupting influences from their lives.

As you can see, there are many and varied thoughts on why leaven is forbidden in the home during the Passover feast.  I would suggest one more idea and that has to do with the reality that yeasts are indigenous species.  There are different yeasts in different cultures as they are airborne.  Therefore, the yeast of Egypt would be different from the yeast of the Land of Israel.  If you want to make San Francisco sourdough bread you need to start with a leaven that comes from San Francisco.  All yeasts are not created equally.  We need to search out our lives for the influence of foreign leaven and ensure it does not affect us going forward.  The Israelites were forbidden leaven in that first Passover they kept in Egypt which also ensured that the leaven of Egypt didn't go with them into the Land.

Leaven is a little thing but a living thing, nothing more than tiny microbes which corrupt the dough and change the flour into something remarkably different and the particular leaven used changes the flavor and properties of the dough.  The fact that it is a living thing is important also because so long as it lives it continues to corrupt and decay.  The only solution to the "problem" of leaven is to get rid of it, to starve it of something to eat.

Paul wrote, " You know the saying, “A little leaven makes the whole batch of dough rise.” You must remove the old leaven of sin so that you will be entirely pure. Then you will be like a new batch of dough with no leaven, as indeed I know that you actually are. For our Passover Festival is ready, now that Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us celebrate our Passover, then, not with bread having the old leaven of sin and wickedness, but with the bread that has no leaven, the bread of purity and truth." [1 Cor. 5.6-9]

Lent is a time when we are called to more than giving up something in order to lose weight or purify our digestive system.  It is a time of searching for leaven in our lives, what is corrupting us and keeping us from following Jesus with our whole hearts.  Sometimes that leaven is the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees, self-righteousness or unbelief, and sometimes we have to recognize we have allowed foreign leaven into our lives, our beliefs, attitudes and dreams are those of Egypt and not of God.  The Sermon on the Mount that we have been preaching through on Sundays is a good reminder of where foreign leaven has come into our lives and we are called to rid that and hear afresh the Lord's teachings on who we are called to be.

Lent is our call to not only search out that old leaven but to rid our lives of it and all its influence.  Searching the home for leaven is a most diligent process and we are called to a forty day period of self-examination to prepare ourselves to rejoice at Easter that Christ is risen.  He is to be our new leaven through the power of the indwelling Spirit.  Lent is a time of preparation and expectation, just as Passover is for the Jews.  We always need grace but the ministry of John the Baptist was a work of preparing a people to meet their king as those who hunger and thirst after righteousness.  Lent is for those who hunger and thirst after righteousness.

With these thoughts I bid you consider how best to purge your lives of the old leaven to make room for the joy of Easter.  I bid you to search and destroy that old leaven but also to seek out the leaven of Christ and incorporate that leaven more fully into your lives.