Lent 1A

Lectionary readings can be found here

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It was never about the milk...

Milk.

I clearly remember, the milk.

Two glasses, lined up on the counter, the blue and white carton fresh from the fridge,

My mother ready to pour.

And my sister and I, keenly watching. 

Slowly, she’d begin with one glass. Pouring about half-way, then alternating to the other. 

Back and forth, bit by bit, she would pour slowly. Occasionally pausing to get to eye level with the milk line in each glass. 

We watched. Waiting for her to make a mistake. 

The mistake, of giving more to one than to the other. 

Shrill protests ready behind our teeth, we were wary and we were ready. 

It wasn’t a love of milk that drove our passion for equity, nor was it love of each other. I didn’t care if she had less, neither did she if she had more. What we cared about was that the other one, didn’t get more. It wasn’t about what we needed. It wasn’t about what we had. It was about ensuring that the “other one” wasn’t favored. 

And, ohhhhh, if one got more than another…the spite and the retribution!

It was never about the milk. 

It was about our parent’s love and our own metaphorical empty glasses. 

Pour the love in, but make sure it’s equal. Pour the milk, and make sure we get the same. We constantly wanted what the other had and my mother worked painstakingly to ensure that the milk was the same. She wanted to make sure that the milk was the same, because we were never sure that the love was likewise. 

Now I know. Now I know the vastness of her love. Her unreasonable and profligate and irrational love that led her to pour, bit by bit, glass by glass, the milk just so. 

I wonder, if that’s how God is in the story we heard today—loving all creation profligately yet unable to appease the jealousy of one for another. For theologians have long speculated that it was green eyed jealousy that motivated the snake to lead astray the very ones who God has declared, not just good, but VERY good. They have speculated that it was jealousy of God’s wisdom that led one to eat, and then another. They have speculated…

About what this primeval story means for us in our post-postmodern world. Where knowledge is power, and trust is scarce, and we hunger for more when the same or even less would be enough.  

Self-consciousness, become shame. Awareness turns to regret. And things would never be the same. For them. For us. For the us in the now, who need to reckon with our very nature. 

Our very good truth, in tension with the reality of our envy. 

The reality, that no matter how much we have…the temptation is to grasp for more.

To grasp for the fruit that is not ours and the power that belongs to God. 

Temptation is easy…the markets themselves driven by our tendency to succumb. To succumb to our wants, all too often at the expense of our innate goodness.

The newborn babe wants for nothing but milk. Unable to focus or grasp beyond the moment. Innocence toddles about unclothed. Delight in the green grass tickling the toes, the breeze on bare skin. Then, the grasp and the wail, the crash and the despair. We are only human, and our desires while base, reflect our deep drive to survive. 

Our drive, for food, water, shelter, and progeny. To survive to create…literally or metaphorically, the what’s next for creation. 

And, so there is tension between comfort and affliction. Tension between who we were made to be and who we have become. Tension between what is and what might be. Tension between neighbors. Tension between friends. Tension between sisters who stare at the glass and wonder if it is full enough. 

And, it is into this tension that temptation comes. 

Hunger, desire, and defiance in the desert. The tempter, knows the weakness of humans. And, Jesus is fully human. But, lest we forget, he is also fully divine. 

Fully human, fully divine, and filled with the knowledge that is is he, it is he who is the beloved son of God. He knows who he is—he is beloved. 

And, he need not fear that he will have less than the love of God. 

And, that love is all sufficient.  

Think of the order of things in the Gospel we hear today—birth, baptism, temptation…Jesus hasn’t even healed anyone yet. And, yet he is loved as he is, not for what he will do, but for who he was born to be. 

The beloved child of God. 

He sees himself, and in seeing there is knowing. 

Jesus knew he was beloved. He knew who he was and to whom he belonged as the beloved child of God. In his belovedness, Jesus could see evil for what it was and reject it. In his belovedness, Jesus had the strength to withstand temptation in the desert. In his belovedness, Jesus had the resilience to wake up each day and face down evil once again. In his belovedness, Jesus had the courage to step back into the world of men and humble himself unto the cross.

God’s love is not a finite good. We cannot run out of it and our neighbor’s or, gasp, even our enemies possession of it does not diminish it for ourselves. 

How is it then, that we covet? That we covet the bit of milk, the bit of money, the bit of this or the bit of that. How is it then, that we look through the eyes of the snake and not the eyes of our God? 

The eyes of God, God who see us through the creator’s lens, and in that seeing declares us “very good”.

They say, that you ought to tell children who you hope them to be. Kind, loving, joyful, honest, smart…and that by doing so, they will believe themselves, by nature, to be these things. Do we believe ourselves very good, or have we convinced ourselves that we are beyond redemption? Do we think that our nature is beyond the mercy of God? 

Most days, I read the news in some form or another. I read it, but not at face value—I read it through the lens of every single thing I read in scripture and everything I say from the pulpit, the prayers we say, the traditions we share, and the people you all are. 

And, so I read about tempters and snakes. I read about denials and despair. I read about the broken and the breaking. I read about destruction and deviance. And, I wonder, how on earth we have come to this place where the tempter’s power holds so much sway. 

And, then I think about milk.

And, I don’t wonder anymore. 

But, we cannot end with the milk.

That would be succumbing to another temptation, to end on a child’s greed, writ large onto a global stage and consider that explanation enough.

If we’re that screwed up, why bother?

Perhaps that is more original than any original sin—a tendency to give ourselves over to an existential despair that unwittingly feeds into the power of evil in the word. The desert fathers and early monastics called this kind of despair acedia, and considered it a sin. It’s the kind of thinking that keeps us from action. Kathleen Norris, contemporary novelist and poet writes, 

“When life becomes too challenging and engagement with others too demanding, acedia offers a kind of spiritual morphine: you know the pain is there, yet you can't rouse yourself to give a damn. . . . Caring is not passive, but an assertion that no matter how strained and messy our relationships can be, it is worth something to be present with others, doing our small part. Care is also required for the daily routines that acedia would have us suppress or deny as meaningless repetition or too much bother.”

It is worth something. To show up. To act. To care. It is worth something. It is worth everything. 

It’s not about the milk.

It’s about giving a damn about God’s love. 

Amen.