Genesis 3:3 "...but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die."
The ports fiasco that transpired last week, came about because of exaggerated prohibitions. We've all been told be on high alert for so long, that any deviance from that which has become the norm, affects us with anxiety, or as one reporter put it, fill us with xenophobia. The President tried to calm the storm of protests from both sides of the political divide, by reassuring us that all the necessary security checks were in place, and that we need not worry.
The trouble is we are worried, and our anxiety has grown over five years of wondering where the next major terrorist attack will take place on the U.S. mainland. It's no use saying to the people that all things are well, when we've been constantly told that all things are not well. The genie of insecurity is out of the bottle, and we all have to deal with it somehow, but telling us that our ports will be safe in the hands of Arabian companies, when we've been led to believe that some Arabs are our enemy, is just not going to work in the present climate.
Today's passage from Genesis deals with the same subject. It concerns an exaggerated prohibition, too. Adam and Eve are told by God not to eat of the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, but Eve adds to the prohibition by saying that if they merely touch it, then they shall surely die. In other words, she not only exaggerates what God has said, she also tells a bare-faced lie, which makes it easier for the serpent to beguile both Adam and Eve into eating the forbidden fruit. Once her credibility is gone, it's easy to take her down the path to perdition.
Sometimes, we use scripture and God's word to justify our own choices and decisions. We even add to what God says in order to squeeze a wee bit more holy authoritative power behind what we do and say. Throughout the centuries, the Church has struggled with this temptation and, sadly, failed time and time again, to honor God's Word by keeping to what He has actually said and done in scripture.
That's why these daily readings are so important. They make us aware of what God has said and done, and not what we believe, or want Him to have said and done. As Christians, we bear the same burden as Adam & Eve - to stick to the truth and to represent God's word as it is written. To do anything else is to re-write scripture, and to claim our own ideas are better than God's, which is what happened in the Garden of Eden.
Prayer: Holy Spirit, save us from being tempted to use scripture to justify our selfish ways and sinful lives. Challenge us with God's words, and help us to use them to change us. Keep us free from exaggerating or under-valuing what God has to say in the Bible and what Christ has done. In His Holy name, we pray. Amen.
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