Brief synopsis of the readings: We begin near the beginning, in the Garden of Eden. God had created the world and all the life in it, then created Adam and Eve. God instructed them not to eat of the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden. But the serpent convinced Eve that God would be pleased and Eve ate the fruit. She also convinced Adam to eat and he did. In this reading God called out to Adam and Eve but could not find them. Adam answered and said he was afraid because he was naked. God immediately knew that they had eaten of the tree. Adam then blamed Eve and Eve blamed the serpent. God told the serpent that he would spend his life crawling on his belly and eating dirt. In Mark’s Gospel Jesus is surrounded by the crowds making it impossible for him to even eat. Jesus’ relatives heard this and assumed he was possessed by demons. But Jesus responded by telling them that evil cannot drive out evil. When Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived and asked for him Jesus told the crowd that his mother and siblings are those who gather around him.

Boy there’s a lot here. At first glance it looks like evil is all around, from the serpent in Genesis to the demons that were thought to possess Jesus to the rude remarks Jesus made to his family. We can be forgiven if we think that today’s Gospel isn’t exactly the “good news” we’re used to.

And so let’s begin with the Gospel. It contains the phrase Abraham Lincoln referred to when speaking of the Civil War: “If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.” This phrase was meant to be inclusive but we often think of it as divisive: evil cannot do good. It can promise good and it often does, but it can never deliver. The Nigerian prince will not make you rich.

But Jesus will and will do so for anyone who wishes it. When Jesus’ mother and siblings come to him he’s not excluding them, but instead he’s including everyone else. When Jesus enlarges the tent he’s not leaving his family outside, he’s welcoming everyone else. He’s not being divisive, even though it appears he’s being rude.

Moving on to the Genesis reading I think we can also see that through the lens of divisiveness. Against God’s warning Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit. Adam then blamed Eve and Eve blamed the serpent. It didn’t take long for all three characters to attempt to shift the blame and it fits in well with the understanding we have of this scene.

Most of us grew up learning this sequence: God told Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit of one tree. They ate it anyway. God punished them by condemning the man to hard labor and the woman to pain in childbirth. They were also banned from Eden. From that point on all of us descendants carry original sin and unless we’re baptized we can’t get into heaven.

OK so let’s look at this anew. God’s first indication that they ate the fruit was Adam’s admission that he recognized he was naked. Something about this fruit made them self aware; nothing else notices they’re naked. Also the serpent told Eve she would be like God and know good from evil.

It’s hard not to look at the events without thinking that God set them up, but God’s anger wasn’t so much “I told you not to do this and now I’m going to punish you” as much as “Now you’ve done it and there’s no turning back.”

Personally I like the idea of knowing the difference between good and evil. The creatures that live on the earth with us know what they need to know. They know how to find food and avoid enemies. They can sometimes work together for food and protection. And while they know how to bear and raise their young they don’t make decisions about when or how many; that’s ruled by hormone levels they don’t control.

They also can’t know or love God. Now I’ll be the first to admit that dealing with ethics can be confusing, confounding and sometimes just plain hard. This calls us to sometimes be self sacrificing even to the point of giving our life (talk to anyone in the armed forces). But it allows us to be like God in loving one another.

That said I occasionally think some of us haven’t fully signed on to this. I was a youth minister in the late 1980s and I heard a speaker talk about how teenagers at that time (who are now in their early 50s) didn’t want to grow up. They felt they were living their greatest freedom and saw adulthood as being less free.

I was astounded, and frankly still am. I remember wanting to become an adult badly because it allowed me the freedom of choosing my job, my home, my most basic decisions. I later came to understand that I was experiencing “freedom to” while those teenagers were experiencing “freedom from.” My freedom to drive a car was their freedom from worrying about family finances. My freedom to choose my profession was their freedom from fear of making the wrong choice. Since then I’ve noticed this in our desire for easy answers to complex problems. When I was a priest I dreaded the question: “Father, would it be a sin to …” because those questions should require an introspection into our hearts and I can’t read another’s heart.

Perhaps our desire for easy answers, or the ability to avoid responsibility for our actions, pushes us toward wistfully looking back at a time when we didn’t need maturity. When we didn’t have to answer tough questions or solve complex problems. When we had freedom from uncertainty over our actions.

Frankly I still find that a little sad. As we grow and mature we learn how to be better. We learn how to be kinder, more generous, more loving. We also learn how to make better choices, not only for ourselves but also the people who depend on us.

At the end of the day I’m not sure that the decision to eat the forbidden fruit was such a bad thing even if it made our lives more complicated. I like that I can love God and love others.

And besides, I think most of us don’t look all that good naked.