June 19, 2005: Original Sin

+THE TWELFTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

It’s already mid-June, and it won’t be long before some annual visitors move back into most of our kitchens for the summer: nasty, little fruit flies. Mine really like my tomatoes…

Not everybody hates fruit flies. In fact, genetic researchers think they’re pretty cool for a couple of reasons. Not only can these little bugs produce many generations in just a few days, but they’re also relatively easy, as bugs go, to selectively breed genetic traits in to or out of. So if you want to experiment with gene pools, they say using fruit flies is a good way to go.

Now picture this rather frustrating scenario: say that you’re one of those geneticists and there’s a particular characteristic that you’d like to breed out. But no matter what you try, that trait keeps reappearing, generation after generation. Even if you throw everything out and start over with an entirely new breeding pair, the characteristic you want to eliminate keeps coming back. Somehow, it seems to be permanently “hard-wired” into this creature’s fundamental nature.

This is actually a pretty good way to look at a comparable human characteristic that we call Original Sin.

I’m sure you know the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Our first parents disobeyed God’s commandment about not eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Their free choice to do this was the first, or original, sin committed by man. And in some very mysterious way, that original sin became an innate human characteristic that is passed along to all human beings, in all generations. It cannot be eliminated, and it cannot be bred out.

In fact, if you remember a little more of your primordial Bible history, you probably recall that sin had gotten so bad and so pervasive, that God sent a flood to cover our planet and to wipe out all human life—except for Noah and his immediate family. But just like those intractable fruit flies, it took no time at all for sin to rear its ugly head once again, in full force. It was truly a permanent human characteristic.

What exactly is original sin? It’s actually a “hole” each of us is born with that should have been filled with God’s gifts. Just the way that dark is not a “thing” but is the absence of light… or cold is the absence of heat… or evil is the absence of good… so original sin is the absence of God’s sanctifying grace. And where that grace is missing, lots of unfortunate consequences become apparent: we are ignorant; we are subject to suffering and death; and we have a strong inclination to sin and evil.

Indeed, every bit of the misery, suffering and death in this world—from the beginning of time until the present day… and even into the future until the end of the world—can be directly traced back to that first disobedient bite of the piece of fruit in the Garden of Eden.

This must be my week for science. I want to tell you about something called the “honey mushroom.” Scientists believe that this is a single species of fungus that is the world’s largest living organism. They came to this conclusion when foresters and researchers investigated why so many trees were dying in a national forest in Oregon. Evidently, a virulent fungus was spreading through the tree root system. The mushroom was drawing off water and carbohydrates from the trees, and at the same time prevented nutrients from being absorbed. The scientists did DNA analysis from trees all over the forest, and they determined that the fungus all came from a single organism. It’s astonishing, but this one gargantuan mushroom covers 2,200 acres and is at least 2,400 years old, and very possibly even older. And it all started from a single spore.

There’s a living illustration of original sin: from a single bite in Eden to all the sin in our world today!

This is the point that St. Paul makes in his letter to the Romans today. Sin and death entered the world through one man, but it grew to affect all of us.

The sad thing about original sin is that it doesn’t take long for it to drive us into evil behavior of our own. Just watch your children and grandchildren. How long does it take for them to transform from innocent babes in your arms to foot-stomping, temper-tantrum-throwing, kicking, biting, no-saying little… darlings. Where did all that come from? Certainly not from Mom and Dad! It’s built-in.

And when we reach the age of reason—long about age 7 or so—we know enough about choosing to do good or bad that we start to become morally responsible for our terrible thoughts and actions. Here’s where original sin bumps us into actual sin.

Not only does our sin impact our relationship with God and with the people we sin against directly, but it also has a much more far-reaching effect. Picture your sin being launched in a pinball machine, ricocheting all over the place. It may be overly simplistic to say, but think of it like this: my lie or bit of cheating in America could conceivably cause a baby to die in Bangladesh.

That sounds pretty depressing, but the story of original sin isn’t hopeless. Far from it. St. Paul goes on to tell us that Christ, the new Adam, came not just to counteract the original sin of the first Adam, but to bring us even better gifts than the ones we originally lost! At the Easter Vigil, the deacon sings the “Exultet” which includes these haunting words: “O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam.”

Through Christ, our baptism washes away the original sin we were born with. The sacrament also fills us with sanctifying grace and gives us the right to heaven. Unlike Adam and Eve, we don’t have to live in an earthly paradise; instead, we may be admitted to God’s very presence. He makes us His adopted children in His very own home.

Yet like Adam and Eve, God expects us to decide. Do we want His gifts? Do we want His offer of heaven? If so, then we must obey Him in this life. He will help us with His wisdom, power and love.

In the Gospel today, the Lord cautions us, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.”

It is awesome to realize that we have control over our own eternal destiny. It is even more breathtaking that God Himself wants us to succeed and helps us to succeed if only we let Him.

Please, let’s let Him. Let us pray for one another. God bless you!



Today’s Readings:
Jeremiah 20: 10–13
Psalm 69
Romans 5: 12–15
Matthew 10: 26–33