Genesis 3:9-15
Sometime back, on a plane ride I watched the movie ‘Blindside’ starring Sandra Bullock. It’s based on a true story. I don’t know if you’ve seen it. It’s a nice, pleasant family movie if you haven’t. I didn’t think too much of it, but there were a couple of things which remained with me, because I think it was one of the best visual narratives of the first reading we have today.
Spoiler alert! But it’s not a suspense film, so it will still be okay to watch! Sandra Bullock and her husband are parents of two children and quite well off. One day they see this big black boy from the school walking in the rain on a late night and she tries to help him. They find he has nowhere to go and offer him their house for the night. This one night continues and they get to know him, and finally adopt him as their own son. He’s like an orphan and doesn’t have anyone. He’s not very bright intellectually but they find that he’s brilliant at rugby and he gets a football scholarship to top universities; they recommend he goes to the family college where all of them have gone. And that’s where the story takes a twist. Other universities want him for his talents, and he is advised by an ‘independent’ advocate about how the family might be manipulating him. Do you know that they are invested in that college foundation? Do you know that this other college might actually be better for you because it has all these wonderful facilities which the other one doesn’t have? Do these people have your best interests at heart? After all they stand to gain from you going here don’t they? Now he questions everything from the beginning of what he has been given from the family. They’ve manipulated you – it’s not said in so many words, but it’s left to the boy’s imagination to figure out the worst. I’ll leave the rest for you to watch!
I’m thinking of it today as we hear from this very familiar text from Genesis. In it’s very concise way, it contains most of the drama that unfolds everyday in our lives. There is Adam and Eve who are happy and content with everything till someone ‘independent’, comes and asks them: ‘are you sure what God wants is good for you?’. That is all he needs to do. The rest, their imagination works out. Is God really good? Does he have our best interests at heart? He just needs to plant the seeds of doubt in their hearts, come around, water them occasionally and lounge around, waiting for it to produce its painful and bitter fruit.
God has no need to create anything, anyone. He has no need to prove anything to anyone; he doesn’t need to go outside himself to find happiness, he is a completely fulfilling community of Love. This love of God overflows in Creation. God creates us willingly, fully knowing that it would cost him everything, his own Son to save us. This is the generosity of God. This generosity, this overflowing love of God is the foundation of everything that exists. It is the ground on which we stand, which makes everything else possible. To say ‘ground’ is like the axioms of a subject. In every subject, there are axioms, presuppositions which themselves cannot be proven. Today we think of science as the great arbiter of all disputes because it is objective, it is neutral. But science depends on belief: things like there is such a thing as a nature, regular cosmic laws which can be discovered, that there is truth and a lot more. The presuppositions of science themselves are not scientific, they are metaphysical, beyond science.
Similarly, the love of God, his goodness is the ground, the presupposition of our life. And that is why the devil comes to attack it. He doesn’t come with a pitchfork and tail to introduce himself; he introduces himself as this ‘independent’ advocate asking you questions for your good. Does your friend really care about you? She didn’t call you back when she said she would. Maybe your boss favours your colleagues. You do the rest of the work deriving the premises: I’m not lovable, there is no goodness, you can’t trust anyone. We are all presented with a lot of facts – look at this suffering, how can God be good? And we tell God the same thing. Explain all this to me and then I’ll believe in you; and most times we won’t get an answer. God won’t play that game because it will never convince you. You can’t believe in love by solving a mathematical equation.
Which is why when God finds Adam, he says, ‘who told you that you were naked?’ He doesn’t explain, he asks, Who told you? In other words, which voice do you choose to believe? Till now they were loved, clothed with God’s own dignity, with an innocence which is what the devil stripped. Now with his innocence destroyed, Adam has to choose whom he will believe. This is not simply what happened to our first parents, this is the drama that plays out everyday in our lives brothers and sisters. We have to choose whom we will believe. As St Anslem used to say, Credo ut intelligam: I believe that I may understand.
But as Adam’s children, if we find yourself unable to trust God, full of suspicion and doubts, where do we start? First immediate thing is to make an act of faith: that is as simple as saying to God, ‘God I want to trust you. Give me an experience of your love, of your goodness’. It is this experience of God’s goodness which roots us. The second is what I tell parents who come for baptism. The most important thing that parents give their children is not the best comforts of life or even things like a great education, but simply their love. It is experience of this love which makes the child know that love is possible and that she is worthy of love. But the even more important thing Christian parents do is to introduce them to God’s love. Our love is never perfect, and we can’t be with our children forever. But the child has to know, by the lived experience in the house, ‘my parents trust God’. It means at the most basic, things like coming to Mass on Sundays and being happy to do so. To have family prayer. To be joyful in your faith. Giving your child the chance to believe in God’s love is the greatest gift you can give your child. And this love is what is poured out on us each week in the Eucharist.
Casting Fire 