Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7
15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it. 16And the Lord God commanded the man, ‘You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; 17but 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.’ 3 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”?’ 2The woman said to the serpent, ‘We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; 3but 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.” ’ 4But the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not die; 5for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’ 6So 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. 7Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.
This story in Genesis of how Eve and Adam gave into temptation is telling. They had everything they needed or could really desire and were happily living in Paradise. Yet they did not realise that and Paradise proved not to be enough for them. There was that one tree, that one fruit that they had been forbidden to eat and that was the temptation. We all know what we humans are like, if you are told that you can’t have something you desire it all the more. How contrary we are, for often the thing we think we really, really want, once we have it, is not what we wanted at all. It was just the thought of having it or the thought that we needed it, was what was desirous. One only has to look at our consumer society and see the debt that many people live with to see this truth. It certainly does not bring happiness getting all that we want or desire, as Eve and Adam discovered.
Both Adam and Eve ignored God’s warning and discovered the pain that wanting too much can bring. Contentment is not something we humans happily embrace. It is a lesson we have to learn or grow into and often we have to do it the hard way. Yet, for some of us until we learn that lesson there is always that itch for more, that bit of discontentment that drives us to desire that which we neither need nor want but think we do.
How much do we actually need? That’s a good question for all of us to ponder over Lent.