I Wonder...

Our scripture texts for this first Sunday in the season of Lent are Genesis 2:15-17 and 3:1-7, Psalm 32, and Matthew 4:1-11. They can be found (along with the epistle text, which we will not be using throughout this season but which is always worth reading, especially in connection with the other texts) here.

I've spent this past week at a curriculum writing conference that stoked the fires of my love for the mystery and possibility that lies within the pages of scripture. One of the main ways we were encouraged to read and write about scripture is through the use of "I wonder" questions--questions that can help us reflect on and probe the many unanswerable questions of the biblical story, that can draw our attention both to a passage's beautiful details and to the ways it fits into the arc of a must bigger story.

So, today, instead of offering any sort of concrete insight into these most well-known passages of the temptations of Adam and Eve and of Christ, I simply offer you four "I wonder" questions in anticipation of Sunday for our two primary passages...for there is much to wonder about here.

As you read the Old Testament text...

• I wonder... why Eve expanded the prohibition against eating of the fruit of the tree to a prohibition against even touching the tree? No words are wasted in this passage...so why are these extra words spoken, and I wonder what they reveal?


• I wonder... why, after the serpent addresses her response, neither Eve nor Adam (who, note, was with her!) speak back to the serpent, nor to each other--they seem to just silently consider and eat. What's up with the silence?


• Fig leaves are apparently itchy and scratchy...a bit like sandpaper. So I wonder why this, of all the darn leaves in the garden, is what the man and woman used to fashion their clothes?


• I wonder... what it feels like to have one's eyes suddenly opened...

And from the New:

• I wonder what it means that in addition to speaking of Jesus fasting 40 days and nights, the writer felt the need to mention that Jesus was hungry? Doesn't that seem like a huge "duh"...


• I wonder how it would change the way we hear the Tempter's first challenge if we translate his first question not "If you are the Son of God" (as most translations do), but "Since you are the son of God" (as the Greek may actually better lend itself to)?


• I wonder why every temptation seems to move Jesus higher--from the stones on the ground, to the pinnacle of the Temple, to a high mountain...I also (this is question 3 and a half) wonder why these things that show up so frequently in Matthew--stones, Temple, mountains--are also the key locations in this key story?


• I wonder why, in all of Jesus' responses, he only uses two words of his own that are not drawn from scripture: "Away, Satan!"...and I wonder (OK, four and a half) what the connection is between Jesus saying this here and saying it to Peter later in Matthew when Peter tries to insist that Jesus not face death?

So there you go, friends...wonder away. It's a pretty remarkable way to read scripture, with an eye to wonder. Join us tomorrow morning at Bible Study for more wondering, and on Sunday as we all enter into the deep wondering of this season of Lent together.