Our Brains Lie
Teddy’s elbow was a mess and he didn’t realize it. After the ref’s whistle blew, everyone on the sidelines of his wrestling match could see that Teddy’s elbow had been reshaped in unnatural ways. Totally unaware that he couldn’t raise his left arm, he used his right arm to point to…his knee. It’s slight swelling was all he could see. His brain was lying to him.
Marathoners have the same issue when they encounter “the wall” – the point about 22 miles into the 26.2 mile run where they believe they can’t take another step. Their brains scream in fear, “Stop running! You can’t go any further!” The truth is more subtle – the body’s energy stores are running low and the brain wants to protect itself as “the most important organ.” The lie is faster and more effective.
For most of us, we live with a similar and more subtle misdirection every day. We bought into two lies, one being more obvious, the other being more destructive as it daily robs us of joy.
In the Jewish and Christian thought (and perhaps Muslim), the lies started at creation.
Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made.
He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say,
‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”
“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman.
“For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
Genesis 3:1-4 NIV
Lies of the Serpent
The serpent’s first lie is the subject of many sermons and altar calls. “You will not certainly die.” Part of that was true. The fruit was not itself poisonous…but it housed the seed of death. “And the Lord God said, ‘The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.’” (Genesis 3:22) Ingesting the fruit meant that the seed of death lived in them; once planted in their hearts and souls, it would inevitably lead to their deaths. Herein lies the serpent’s craftiness: the serpent knew that we would focus on matters of life and death and not realize that our lives were being destroyed even while they were being lived if we didn’t notice his second lie.
The second lie: if we “know good and evil” we will be “like God.” As with the first lie, there is a kernel of truth – read verse 22 in the paragraph above again. Humanity became “like God” when we became aware of good and evil. The lie is that this knowledge alone will make us like God.
Unfortunately, humanity “can’t handle the truth!” because we lack the other attributes of God that prevent His knowledge of good and evil from consuming Him. With only a partial knowledge of good and evil and without the other attributes, the knowledge of good and evil gobbles up our joy and devours our lives. We live in fear of our impending death without recognizing that we are constantly dying due to our obsession with the knowledge of good and evil.
When we treat the knowledge of good and evil as sustenance for our lives, it passes through our lips and our minds and poisons our souls. Like Teddy focusing on his knee when his elbow was misshapen, we hone in on the lesser problem. We cross all our “t’s” and dot every “i” never realizing that our words are misspelled and our grammar is atrocious. Obsessed with eliminating “evil” from our lives and from our world, we lose sight of the “good” that surrounds us. Our lives are diminished less by the pollution of evil and more by our obsession with it.
For years, I focused on my sadness and looked for ways to eliminate it. Sadness = evil; happiness = good. I went forward for prayer after worship and faithfully attended counseling sessions seeking to eliminate the sadness and replace it with happiness. One day, it dawned on me: sometimes, I’m sad. Comparing my level of sadness with other people no longer mattered. I was sad. Oddly, it wasn’t until I accepted sadness as part of my reality that I was able to see the good that surrounded me. My focus shifted.
We do this with others as well when we go out of our way to avoid their “evil.” We cross the street to avoid someone who doesn’t look like us, smell like us or act like us…and miss the opportunity to benefit from their lived experiences. Zooming in on one aspect of a person’s life which we disapprove of, we fail to see the ways in which they exemplify faith and/or humanity. The newfound and seemingly always fresh awareness of “evil” in our world dulls our senses to the “good” that is also before us. The loss of eternal life is a huge loss; so also is the slow death that comes while we labor under the lie that we are “like God” because we “know good and evil.”
Eating the Good Fruit
I wonder what it would be like to spend a day – even an hour! – without a thought to whether our actions or the actions of others are “good” or “evil.” What would it be like to encounter ourselves in the mirror or another in our workplace and embrace them as a fellow human being without labelling their clothing, hairstyle, smell, religion, sexuality, gender, skin color, work skill, education, upbringing, choice of friends, financial decisions, language…as “good” or “evil?” How much time and mental energy could be saved? Would we be able to see their “goodness” if we failed to notice their “evil.” Would we be able to do the same for ourselves?
Would Adam and Eve make a different choice if they knew the truth and the consequences? When the serpent said, “You will not certainly die,” would they turn away from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in order to be able to later eat from the tree of life? I’d like to think so. And when the serpent said, “The knowledge of good and evil will make you like God,” would they recognize how incompletely they would become “like God”…and leave the fruit attached to the tree? I want to believe they would if they knew that the pursuit of the knowledge of good and evil would be a compulsion that would consume their lives. But there is something inside of us that makes us want to be like God and to know good and evil.
Perhaps the best we can do now that Adam and Eve’s decision has been made is to make different decisions for ourselves. Rather than letting the knowledge of good and evil devour our lives, we can turn our attention to life and dine on that. Jesus gives us permission to do so. While not eliminating the distinction between good and evil, He said, “Let my good overcome your evil.” Every jot and tittle in the Law was fulfilled in Him so that we can live in freedom. I wonder what it would be like to turn our backs on the knowledge of good and evil and to focus on the good – in ourselves and in others. It might allow us to experience the promise of Jesus, “I have come that they may have life and have it to the full.”