Lent 2023 First Reading

First Sunday of Lent

Before I start my reflection today, I would like to add a disclaimer. I do not hate men. I have a wonderful husband, a terrific Dad, 3 amazing sons and 1 fabulous son-in-law, a great uncle, 2 brothers….you get the picture. What I do detest, is getting only the “man’s point of view” in scripture.

Today’s reading from Genesis 2: 7-9, 3: 1-7, is problematic for me because of the lens that the author views our world. That man is first, and it is okay to blame someone else for his sin.

Would it not have been prudent, when making up a story about how sin enters our world, to take some personal responsibility?

Instead, the author shunts the blame on the woman… “So she took some of the fruit and ate it; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her and he ate it.” When they later converse with God about this disobedience, Adam says, “the woman whom you put here with me — she gave me the fruit from the tree, so I ate it.”

This is how you can tell that a man wrote this story.

The woman blames the snake, and then everyone gets punished, first the snake, then the woman then Adam.

Gracious.

It is distracting to be a woman at church!

I cannot begin to take down a few Millenia’s worth of the patriarchy. I can instead, search for the gems in Genesis.

I absolutely love the first sentence in today’s reading and I am going to take license and change the pronouns for the good author. “The Lord God formed people out of the clay of the ground and blew into their nostrils the breath of life, and so they became living beings.”

This is a wonderful image, archaic, but comforting. To think of God getting down on his haunches and playing with clay until he is pleased with the result. He then breathes his life into the clay, and we live, creatures all his own.

The cannon fathers pair this reading with Jesus’ temptation in the desert, which is certainly one way to look at it.

I would like to think about how God created us, blew his life into us. How even when we are adults, we have a difficult time being obedient and owning up to our own sin.

I think that is the temptation we should ponder today. Am I blaming others for my sins? What needs to change in my heart so I can take responsibility for the wrong I have done?

It is something to think about on the first Sunday of Lent….