Friday think
An abbreviated contemplation this morning, the 20th of February, first Friday in Lent 2026. Looking around me, reading the news, feeling every second of ninety years, but thinking how gratifying it would be to live into a next age when an American electorate would restore my confidence in its wisdom, judgment, and goodness.
Recently I watched online as an elderly German woman reminisced about factions in the Third Reich. She remembered the Wehrmacht as ordinary soldiers, and the Gestapo whose sole purpose was cruelty and fear.
Looking around, as I say, and observing that among humans - - throughout history humans who attain power use it for suppression, cruelty and fear. Power elements of the Third Reich, the Christian church throughout its history as long as the people gave it power over them, a nationalist Christianity in America today, ICE and the level of humanity it attracts, individuals who enjoy hurting people.
My hope might be to outlive this era and reemerge in a Time of kindness, an American New Dawn.
Just a lenten thought as the weekend starts with Lent One, the First Sunday in (not OF) Lent.
If you've given up rutabagas for Lent, your Lenten fast is suspended for the Sunday and you must eat rutabagas for Sunday dinner after church.
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MeanTime, our Old Testament reading for Sunday:
Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7
The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, “You may freely 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 die.”
Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.’“
But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.
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It's a great old story, one of our greatest, of which Sunday's lesson is just a snippet that shows damnable "original sin" but doesn't go on to show the love of God at the end. At any event, the question is, or the questions are, If God didn't want the people to eat the fruit, why did God put the tree in the middle of the garden where they couldn't miss it, and Why did God pointedly single out the tree and forbid them to eat its fruit, knowing dee well his forbid was a temptation that was the first thing they succumb to??!!
The answer is clear but woven into the fabric of a carpet that when we close the last page of the book might be called God's plan of salvation.
First, the story is an etiology that, as it plays out, explains What Is, which is our human predicament: we have to work for a living, we're afraid of snakes and kill them, women suffer terrible pain in childbirth, and instead of having legs to walk on snakes have to crawl on the ground.
Second, theologically (and still etiologically), we humans started out innocent and ignorant like all the other animals, without a moral compass: the story tells how we came to be different from other animals, acquiring a morality of knowing good from evil as self-evident; and also being able to have ourselves as our own object. The story further, shows that God wanted us to make the break by exercising our own will, theologically the sin of disobedience, but actually we played into God's hands and became God's partners in creation instead of just God's servant animals created to name the other animals and till the ground.
Theologically, instead of sinning, we fell into God's game and came out ahead, as God'd intended. This "second creation tale" is an old original campfire story that answered questions for ancient people and helped them unite with their Creator. Theologically, if we'd not disobeyed and tasted the fruit, instead of developing into what, for better or worse, humans are today, we'd have gone on as, and still be, dummies tilling the soil in the Garden.
So, the Book of Genesis, Beginnings, an excellent read for Lent if you're so inclined!
For a different take on this facet of creation (making humans), read the first bit of Job, where God tells the assembled heavenly council that he's created humans, and Satan says, Oh boy, you've done it now; you should have take council with us before doing this; but you'll find that out soon enough. And sure enough, at Genesis 6:5f Satan is proved right, though nobody ever gives him the credit, eh?
RSF&PTL
T90
pic: clipart pinched free online