OT X (B) Gen 3: 9-15; II Cor 4:13–5:1; Mk 3:20-35 (L/24)

On this tenth Sunday of ordinary time, the Church reminds us that as humans, we all have an existential struggle against evil. The early chapters of the Book of Genesis have much to teach us about why things are as they are today and why we are mostly surrounded by evil. The first reading tells us of the goings on immediately after Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden tree. Is this a true account, exact in every detail? We don’t know as there were no witnesses there taking notes. What we do know is that all mankind is descended from Adam and Eve and that we all bear the stain of their first (the original) sin. We also know that the Holy Spirit guided the human author of this account thousands, if not millions, of years later to set down the theological truths that God wanted to be revealed.

The reading says after the Great Fall, The LORD God then called to the man: where are you? Isn’t God omnipotent? Yes, He is. Doesn’t He know everything? yes, He does. What He is doing is telling the man that He knows something is wrong, and He is inviting the man to tell Him about it. The question really is “Where are you in your relationship to me?” It is always God who issues the invitation to confess our sins to Him – He does it with a little nudge of the conscience. God knows all our sins, but He wants us to verbalize them so that we are sure that we know what they are.

The man’s reply was: “I heard you in the garden. The King James Version says I heard your voice, but I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid myself. He recognized that he was lacking something – it’s not clothing that he was lacking, it’s God’s grace.

Then he asked, “Who told you that you were naked?  Since they are the only two humans in all creation; God points out that it is his conscience that has pointed out his sin.

God says You have eaten, then, from the tree of which I had forbidden you to eat!” God now points out what the sin was – he has eaten of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He is now able to recognize that they have done evil and have lost grace.

Then the blame game begins. Adam blames Eve for his state. She blames the serpent. This is so typical of evil. The person who does evil is always looking to implicate other people rather than accept his responsibility for the evil deed. In the Catholic Church we teach our children to take responsibility for their misdeeds as soon as they are able to distinguish right from wrong. That is why we have First Penance at 7 years old. By doing this, we are teaching our children to fight against evil.

Why does God approach the man first? After all, the woman was the first to eat the forbidden fruit (Gen 3:6).

Before God made the woman, He had put the man in the garden to work it and to keep it (Gen 2:15). The Hebrew word (shammar) translated as “keep” can also be translated as “guard” (keep safe). After this commission, then God commands the man not to eat of the tree. If he was to guard the garden, he must guard everything and everyone in it, including his companion; and there must be something to guard against. The man failed to keep the serpent from influencing his wife and himself – he had only one command to obey: Do not eat of the tree.

The command not to eat had been given to the man before the woman was created. The man had instructed the woman, but she did not heed his direction but chose instead to listen to the serpent. She had chosen the serpent over her husband – a form of adultery. Remember that the Bible is all about covenant – family. She ate with the serpent rather than with her husband. She had communion with him.

Then the LORD God said to the serpent: “Because you have done this, you shall be banned from all the animals and from all the wild creatures; On your belly shall you crawl, and dirt shall you eat all the days of your life. The devil will not have influence over any of God’s creation except man (who was made from dirt). The only example we have in the Holy Scripture of demonic possession of animals is in Matthew 8:30-32 (Mark 5:11-13; Luke 8:32-33) where demons enter a herd of swine and then commit suicide rather than be possessed.

God cursed Satan saying, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; He will strike at your head, while you strike at his heel.” Have all women (or men, for that matter) had total separation/rejection between them and Satan? Obviously not, but “the woman” was sinless until this event, and her name is changed to Eve as a result (Gen 3:20). There has been sparring between the devil and mankind ever since. Total enmity occurred when another sinless woman came along; a woman whose own son referred to her as “woman” as a sign of respect, The Blessed Virgin Mary.

On this Sunday, the Church reminds us that as humans, we all have an existential struggle against evil. However, the good news is that, we are illuminated through the assurance of victory, through the seed of the woman (Mary).

In today’s Gospel Jesus is the victim of calumny by his opponents. The scribes say that Jesus has made a pact with the devil and that it’s by the devil's power that he casts out demons. The Lord defends himself by asking quite logically: “How can Satan cast out Satan?” “A household divided against itself cannot stand.”  Jesus points out to them the absurdity of their thinking that he uses the devil to cast out demons. In fact, it is Jesus who ties up the strong man, Beelzebub, and overcomes him. To any honest mind, these miracles proved that he was, at least, a friend of God.

Be sure of this: there is a war which is being waged. Paul says, “We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Eph 6:12). And we, as followers of Christ, have no choice but to be involved. There will be skirmishes in every one of our lives. There will be times when we might think we are losing. We are not losing. The outcome of the war is certain in God’s time, the Son of God will crush the head of the serpent. Trusting in God’s power God has granted us in our baptism, let’s have that confidence to fight the enemy of the human race, and keep him out of our homes and lives.