Karen Armstrong is one of my heroes. Well - intellectual heroes anyway, a London-based author and professor, she is one of the few folks who can cut to the chase of religious pluralism, and get down to the nitty-gritty. This last week I re-read her piece on what myth is and it got me thinking. She points out that myth in our contemporary world is considered anything that is not true, a fiction associated with deceit and pretense. But she notes that, in the pre-modern world, myth was regarded as a form of psychology - a psychology which charted the inner world. She says: "Since religion is also concerned with the quest for meaning amid the chaos of mundane existence, fiction can be more useful to the spiritual life than a purely historical narrative."
So why does this matter this week? Well, I've been wrestling with whether or not it is worth our time and energy to reclaim the Garden of Eden story knowing it is myth or if we should just continue to throw it out.
We have traditionally thrown out the story as being insignificant for two reasons. It does not in our eyes hold a truth about human nature. As I mentioned last week, the Christian tradition in particular holds up the Adam and Eve story as the basis for original sin. For us, there was never some irredeemable stain on the individual; rather we've most often looked at sin as a relational and social category, not a personal or ontological one. Instead sin becomes all the social and relational dynamics which serve to separate and divide us as human beings.
So because we have this different view of the story as not telling the truth about human nature, we see the story as a bunch of hooie - and we throw it in the trashcan.
Further, because we don't see the Garden of Eden story as a tale that correctly explains the origins of the universe, a world created by divine hands, with a god who creates humans from lumps of clay and breaths life into their forms as fact, or as a history of the world in 6,000 short years, historically, we have called the story hooie once again, and dumped it in the trashcan.
But using Armstrong's definition of myth - as fiction that helps us get to religious and psychological truths rather than historical facts - I re-read the story.
Now I know you all remember this story right. There is this garden, and it is oh so lovely. You can just picture it, can't you? Kind of like hanging out on a beach in Maui with a perfect sunny day, about 80 degrees, slight breeze; no worries, no cares, no complaints accompany your day. And then a light shower comes in the late afternoon for a quick 10 minutes and then floats away and you are left with a magnificent rainbow. There is the slightest waft of gardenias and jasmine floating through the air. Then Sven comes out with a Piña Colada and asks if you're ready for your afternoon massage (OK, wrong story, I was just checking to see if you were listening) - anyway this is paradise, as they say. God had made all of it and has said, "This is good!" I like this! Fantastic!" Pats himself on the back, good work god!
So the next part gets to how the story was broken open for me, in particular regarding temptation.
You'll remember here what God put in that garden, with the palm trees, the gardenia and the piña coladas, a tree of knowledge. Oh yes, right in the middle of the garden, and then he said to Adam, "OK, look around pretty groovy place right? What else could you yearn for, life is great. You won't really be tempted or bothered by this tree. All your needs are met. Those apples may look yummy, but they are my new hybrid models and you can't eat any fruit from that tree or you will die, that's right - croak, just expire. And trust me you don't want that." So Adam tells Eve and they both agree they don't like the idea of expiring and yes indeed they will stay away from the tree of good and evil, or the tree of knowledge. But then into the story comes the snake.
And this snake is a smooth talker, convincing, and a little conniving. A little enlightening character. The snake basically says to Eve, "Hey did Adam tell you that God said you would die by eating the fruit from that tree. Die? - phooy, your not gonna die! That's hogwash, a bunch of bunk. God told him that because he knows that if you eat the fruit from that tree, well, your eyes will be opened, and you will become like gods, knowing the difference then between good and evil." Oh that snake was good wasn't he? Because then Eve looks again at that fruit and she thinks about what the snake said, and she just goes for it, and she takes a big juicy bite. And then, well it is all downhill from there.
Now re-reading this helped me notice something important. When I read it for a psychological truth, not a literal truth, something about that keen, skillful snake's enticement to eat that apple really struck me. I want you to notice something. This is the tree of knowledge, not the tree of pure evil. In other words the snake wasn't tempting her to the dark side, to do some evil twist with some nasty power. Notice instead that he was appealing to her ego, because when he said "You will be like God, and what better thing is there than that. To be like a God?" he is goading her, getting her to think higher of herself than she should. "I could be like God, we'll of course I could!" she's probably thinking, "the snake tells me so." Plus likely she added to this, "Well, Adam told me about the apple, and you can't always trust Adam, he is a man after all. This makes sense I could be great, powerful, grand, all knowing and why not, I deserve that apple. God is just being jealous, taking all the glory for himself." Now, with all this combined it doesn't make me think that this is a real battle going between good and evil as most often viewed, but a battle between good and ego.
Which is saying a lot, right? Because the real kicker in this story is not a battle between knowing what the difference between good vs. evil is, the focus on the story is recognizing the difference between good vs. ego. That maybe for Eve, and for the rest of us humans, that is our greater fight. The fight between good vs. ego. Indeed as Rabbi Harold Kushner points out the harder choice in our life is not between good vs. evil, but between how we want to see ourselves as good people and our need to be recognized, our egotism.
Kushner says: "What happens when our need to think of ourselves as good people collides with our need to be recognized as important? Is it possible to do both? How often do we find ourselves betraying our values by violating our consciences, in our struggle to have an impact on the world? Political candidates compromise their values to raise funds and gain votes. Salesmen exaggerate the virtues of their wares. Doctors, lawyers, and businessmen neglect their families in the pursuit of professional and financial success. Often we don't like what we find ourselves doing but we tell ourselves we have no choice."
Just last week, Scott told me of a very moving story that happened when he was visiting the Mennonite church. He said there was a touching moment during the service when one of the parishioners gathered there was saying good-bye. And in his saying goodbye, he spoke very briefly about his decision to leave, and that it turned into a public confession. As you likely know, Mennonites are pacifists. This fellow had never wavered from his pacifist position. But this man had been wooed to Rochester to work for a company that makes radio and transmitter parts. He had been told that he was a star designer, that he was the only one who could do the job. But you see the company he worked for had defense contracts and he was working in part for the war effort. In truth he was confessing that he wasn't tempted by evil, but rather that he was working against his values because of his ego, because he was being told that he was the only one who could do the job. But his conscience won out, to do good over his ego won out, and he was leaving to go back to a job where he was only a middle manager, not the star, not the hot shot, not the big man in the shop.
Now why is it important to know this? This naming of good vs. ego. Well if you put it into psychological terms, our problems can be confronted if they are correctly named. This is why a correct diagnosis is important, so someone can then fix it. Without the diagnosis, you don't know what it is that you are trying to fix - right? And you want to know what the problem is so you can wrap your head around it. It is less threatening than the unknown.
So when it comes to sin, our society tends to frame everything as good vs. evil, which is unfortunate, because it takes our eye off the ball, about what the major struggle is we wrestle with each day. The temptation to do evil over good isn't that prevalent, versus how often the temptation to lead with ego over good pops up in our daily life. And to correctly name the temptation helps point us in the right direction.
In truth, I'm not really tempted by evil that much. I think most of us are pretty good eggs, we don't really think about murder, or bribery, or armed robbery, torture, or even cheating on our tax returns - that isn't our weekly, daily struggle. I know that the devil that most often pops up on my shoulder isn't really telling me to lie, or to steal a car, or to throttle my children, hmmm, ok, that one has comes up but aside from that, the devil that pops up on my shoulder, on most of our shoulders, is the devil of ego.
And friends this is hard to admit and to address because the lure toward ego can shadow the will to do good. And why is that, why is the lure so strong? Well I agree with those who point out that this lure, this desire to have ego win out is not rooted in us wanting to be bad or evil, but rather it is strangely rooted in a good thing. It seems rooted in our deep desire to have our lives matter, to have made a mark on the world, to not have our lives be insignificant. I don't really think it is about needing to be top dog. That's not it; ironically, it's not about our ego but our deep fear that our lives are meaningless, insignificant, and inconsequential.
Our fear of meaningless lives in us so strongly and serves as such a lure, that we don't act with what our conscience leads us to, or our values point us toward, because we need to lead with our ego in order to ward off the demon of meaninglessness.
Even on a large scale I think this is true. You've got to wonder if our leaders fear of meaninglessness doesn't inform their decisions as well. One could argue that George W. Bush's grandiose attempt to spread democracy around the world was an attempt to ward off his own sense of meaninglessness. If you remember before 9/11 nobody really could remember what it was he stood for or believed. But then 9/11 came around and he found his cause, he made his mark. And it becomes clear that ego indeed can lure us with such hubris as we attempt to be rendered and remembered as significant, memorable, and certainly meaningful.
On our own level, let me give you one example, there are many but here is one. We can betray our kids by working all the time to have status with a job, not because we really love the job but because we want our work to matter, we want our lives to matter. Because in truth, no one will know how great a father we are besides our kids, but to be known in the world, well then you know you matter. And besides, history will not remember one more great dad or mom. So we get lured. We get confused. We get swayed. There are 6 billion people in the world. None of us want to be one of the swarm. All 6 billion are trying to make their mark, trying to have their lives matter, be remembered. Again the temptation in modern times as it was in ancient times is not good vs. evil, but good vs. ego.
For me, this begs the question of what it looks like or means to "live a life that hasn't given into the temptation of ego?" Now I'm gonna admit there are many right answers and examples, but here is probably my favorite.
Two and a half years ago Wendy Muldoon died. She was 54. She on the surface seemed like your average person. I mean average in she hadn't made her mark on the world through notoriety, fame, fortune, or physical appearance. She was described, as kind, someone who looked out for others, was generous with her life, her time, her money, and her heart. The family had warned me that the sanctuary might be quite full. I honestly had a few slight doubts. Because through the filter of ego = status = importance, was she really a person who had made a large mark. Then the memorial came on an 85-degree day in July and this sanctuary was 90 degrees. Hot from the temperature sure, but hot mostly because of all the bodies. The room was packed, the lobby was packed, and the gallery was packed. Standing room only in this room, and in every other room, people listened through the speakers as we paid tribute to her life. All these folks paying homage to this average gal.
For over 2 years I've reflected on why this many people came, why the mass veneration. And in doing this sermon it has occurred to me that she had made a difference in people's lives by letting the good side of her win out over the ego side of her. In other words, she let caring for others guide her more than cultivating a reputation or cultivating renown. She touched and shaped for all those darn lives in that room and in awe to a spirit who had lived out of the good, they were there to bear witness to a life that was significant in its living.
She lived for integrity rather than adulation. She was moved by the so-called smaller virtues of kindness, humility and caring. Her life paid homage to the best of what we are called to wrestle with in life.
On the day of her memorial, her family passed out these little vials of her ashes and asked all of us to spread them in a place that reflected beauty, as she was a bearer of beauty to the world. Since that time, her ashes have sat in the little vial on a shelf in our office. I haven't yet figured out where to spread them. Anyplace I can think of doesn't seem to pay enough reverence to this average, memorable, significant life. Further, in order to pay homage to this average life, it seems appropriate almost to spread them not in a place but at a moment of time when we or one of you, or maybe even myself is surely living out of the good part of us so clearly rather than the ego side, and let's be honest that is a little odd isn't it. So they sit on the shelf, until appropriate honor can be bestowed to their scattering.
The snake was asking us to lean into ego. Our task as religious people is to lean into the good. Meaningfulness in our lives should be rooted in the right place.
Rooted not in what we do for a living but who we are.
Rooted not in what we have in resources but who we are.
Rooted not in whom we know but in who we are.
And our test of whether we got this right should not be any notoriety, press, acclaim, titles, awards, honors or status while we are alive, but if we too someday have our ashes sit on someone's shelf, waiting to be scattered, out of awe for a life lived out of the quieter virtues of kindness, integrity and caring. May that be our highest calling and resolve my friends. May it be so.
Amen.
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