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Home Page
The Rector's Welcome
Worship
Sermons
Music & the Organ
Newsletter
Schedule & Events
History
Programs & Ministries
Tour the Building
Links
Map & Directions
Monthly Calendar
Home Page
The Rector's Welcome
Worship
Sermons
Music & the Organ
Newsletter
Schedule & Events
History
Programs & Ministries
Tour the Building
Links
Map & Directions
Monthly Calendar
Fr. J. D. Ousley
13 February 2005Gen. 2/Mt. 4“Comfort Food”
In the Name of God: Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. Amen.
"Comfort food" is food that is eaten not to provide nourishment to the body but to give psychological relief to the soul.
Now, no one has to tell New Yorkers that food is more than just fuel for the body! New Yorkers line up to spend vastly more for food in a restaurant than we would spend at the grocery store. We're glad to pay for the social scene; we love sitting at a good table that had to be reserved weeks in advance. Well beyond giving ourselves nourishment to survive, we reward chefs for beautiful "presentation" of food, for exotic ingredients and for clever techniques of cooking.
All these extras give us a comfort well beyond filling up our stomachs! Here, food is a symbol for knowing what's "in."
In the story of Adam and Eve, food is also a symbol. But what exactly it symbolizes is more elusive than we might think. For this is far from being a simple story.
Most people are familiar with the story (which was today's Old Testament Lesson) and most people think they know what it means.
People remember that Adam and Eve were the first people and they lived in paradise, but they got kicked out of the garden of Eden because they ate fruit from the one tree in the garden that they weren't allowed to touch.
People may also think they recall Adam and Eve eating an apple from the tree; in reality, the Book of Genesis doesn't specify the kind of fruit that they ate.
But the Bible does say the name of the tree with the forbidden fruit: "The Lord said, 'You may freely eat of any tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat, for in the day you eat of it you shall die."
This is indeed a curious name: "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." Leave aside the question of how eating some fruit could give you knowledge of good and evil; not even star New York chefs would make this claim for their cuisine!
Leave aside the "how," because this is, after all, a story. The greater question is, Why? Why would God want to deny this knowledge to human beings? What's wrong with knowledge?
Well, again, this text is a story. And it's a story that's symbolic. The word, "Adam," means, "Man, Human Being." So the Book of Genesis isn't talking about a particular couple, like Joe and Sally, who took a walk in their garden. Genesis is talking about "man and woman" — about human beings in the most fundamental sense.
Nor did the author of the story really believe that Adam and Eve could have spent eternity in the Garden of Eden if only they had stayed away from that tree of knowledge. There's something inevitable about the human urge to know. God made human beings curious. We always want to know more.
Rather, the story has an entirely different purpose. The Book of Genesis attempts to show the dangers of the this human quest for knowledge.
In our own time, this noble search often falls into selfishness. In our knowledge — obsessed age, we're ell aware of the dangers of eating from the tree of knowledge.
Take the issue of privacy. Confidential information can be manipulated in dubious ways. Using the marvels of technology, your employers can discover what you write on your office computer; they can find out what's on your medical record.
As the philosopher, Francis Bacon said, "Knowledge is power." And more knowledge can lead to more power and more power can lead to temptation to abuse that power.
This temptation is the same one that got Adam and Eve into trouble: the temptation to think that just because we want to know something, our uses of that knowledge will be the right ones.
And as Lent begins, we might also look at the quest for knowledge from a personal perspective. For example, even though we try to find out things — including things we maybe shouldn't know about other people — at the same time, don't we refuse to learn things about ourselves? Things we ought to know?
Think again of comfort food! How often we kid ourselves that we're getting nourishment when we're really eating junk.
And notice how Adam and Eve find excuses to do what they shouldn't do. As Genesis says, "the woman saw that it was good for food." We, too, when we reach for forbidden fruit say, "I need to treat myself."
Adam and Eve also try to justify their misdeed on aesthetic grounds; in the words of Genesis, they found that the tree of knowledge "was a delight to the eye." How often we're tempted by something harmful that happens to look good — and not just food!
There's a more general truth here, too. We justify actions that are harmful to ourselves and other people by giving what appear to be good, thoughtful reasons. The would-be dieter finds all kinds of excuses why some late night ice cream would be a good idea: "It will calm me down." "It will help me sleep."
But clever rationalizations are no better than saying, after reading today's Gospel, that "the devil made me do it." Modern people should be as skeptical about their inner reasonings as ancient people were about the seductions of the devil.
We try to trick ourselves mentally to justify doing what we want, even when it's not good for us.
Rationalizations are a kind of comfort food for the mind and they can have the same negative impact: while our excuses give us a transitory sense of well-being, we end up bloated with an exaggerated sense of moral superiority.
In fact, when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit, they weren't getting comfort food. They were getting discomfort food.
They were learning another truth that Jesus points to in the Gospel text: human beings don't "live by bread alone." We also need, as Jesus says, words that come from God.
So, unlike Adam and Eve, we should seek fruit from the tree of knowledge. Such a quest could be part of our Lenten discipline to look at ourselves with honesty.
But such a quest doesn't lead to a "fall." Knowing ourselves as we are — knowing our rationalizations and excuses — actually lifts us up.
For in the discernment process, we're given spiritual food from God.
And now unto that same God Father, Son, and Holy Spirit be ascribed as is most justly due all might, majesty, power, dominion and praise, now and forever, Amen.